


Blood in the Water

by herald0fmanwe, silmarilz1701



Series: The Fëanoriel Chronicles [10]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Feanoriel Chronicles, Fourth Age, Harad, Post-War of the Ring, Super secret other Silmarillion characters, Umbar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-10-09 15:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17409374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herald0fmanwe/pseuds/herald0fmanwe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/silmarilz1701/pseuds/silmarilz1701
Summary: Unrest in Umbar demands a response from the Throne of Gondor.  Aragorn and Arwen send their eldest daughter Amdirien, accompanied by Thorongil (Eonwe) and the Ranger Anders (now captain of her royal guard), to assess the situation and bring the rebellious city back under Gondor's control.  Unfortunately the wheels of a coup are already turning, and what begins as a diplomatic mission quickly turns to a desperate fight for survival.It is highly recommended that readers have first read “The Eagle and the Star” and “The Knight and the Huntress,” because the main characters of this story were introduced there. Takes place after the events of main story Flight to the East, which has not been completed (as of 1/13/19)





	1. Arrival

The Tar-Minyatur was the pride of Gondor’s fleet.  More than five-hundred sailors and soldiers manned the flagship named for Numenor’s first king.  Spirits were high - the Princess was aboard and the winds were fair. The only person on that ship who didn't look happy was Thorongil.

 

He stood near the prow staring at the sea as though he expected something to leap from the depths and attack him.  Amdirien crept up behind him. At last, she thought, revenge for everyone he had startled in Minas Tirith.

 

“Good morning Captain!” she cheerfully exclaimed.

 

Thorongil spun round, instinctively drawing a silver dagger.  For a moment his black armor started to materialize before fizzling away.

 

“You think that wise?” he glared.

 

“Turnabout is fair play,” smiled Amdirien.

 

Thorongil laughed.  “That's a dangerous thing to do.”

 

“You're making me nervous,” said the Princess.

 

“I don't like the sea,” answered Thorongil.

 

“Aww, what would Ulmo think of that?”

 

“Do you have any idea how long it would take to swim to shore from here?  Without my wings, we're are at the mercy of this flimsy boat.”

 

“Flimsy boat!” objected Amdirien.  “There hasn't been a finer warship built since the days of Numenor!”

 

“Elven ships don't creak so much,” replied the maia, who’s incredible senses allowed him to hear every bending board and beam.

 

“Beautiful morning, isn't it?” asked Captain Anders, joining them at the prow.  Amdirien had named him captain of her royal guard.

 

“Good morning captain; apparently everyone's favorite hero is scared of the ocean,” smiled the Princess, patting Thorongil on the shoulder.

 

“My grandfather served in the navy,” said Anders, “but this is my first time at sea.”

 

Captain Pedron, who had commanded the flagship since she was launched twenty-one years prior, joined them as well.  “You could pick no finer vessel to take you on your first voyage!”

 

“Good morning captain,” laughed Amdirien.  “I'll have to promote some of you so I can address you by your rank.”

 

“Good morning Your Majesty; good morning Captain Anders; good morning Thorongil,” replied Pedron.  Thorongil looked a little disappointed to be the only one without a title.

 

The Princess turned to leave.  “By your leave, I shall return to my quarters…”

  
  


The Princess spent most of the trip to Umbar in her quarters reading a stack of books about the city and its people.  She also spent a few evenings speaking with Mirumor, who had secured passage home on the flagship as partial payment for her help in Mordor.  Nearly two weeks after they set sail from Pelargir they arrived in Umbar. The harbor was bustling with merchant ships and Gondor’s navy. Amdirien looked proudly through a forest of masts flying black flags with silver trees.

 

As Her Majesty’s ship docked alongside other ships of war, Captain Anders assembled her guard.  Captains Pedron and Anders led her down the gangplank and onto the dock. There they were met by a young servant of the crown, a man named Altazîr.  As he quickly explained, he was the under-secretary of internal affairs. The local officials in Umbar were not expecting the Princess’s arrival, and he apologized profusely that a simple under-secretary was the highest ranking official present to greet such an esteemed visitor.

 

He led Amdirien, Thorongil, Pedron, and her guard up through the city to a ‘secure location.’

 

“Far be it for me to tell someone such as yourself their own business, but it might not be wise for you to stay long in this city,” said the man.  “In just the last week, three public officials have been assassinated, and they had guards just like yours!”

 

“There are no guards like mine,” smiled the Princess with a nod to Thorongil and Anders.

 

“Of course not ma’am, I meant no offense,” he continued, before being cut off as they came across quite a commotion.  The building they were making for, the Office of Internal Affairs, stood just in front of them - but it was bustling with soldiers shouting and cursing.  A guard ran up to them, pale as death.

 

“He’s dead!” he cried frantically.  “He’s dead!”

 

“Who's dead?” asked the under-secretary.

 

“The director!” shouted the guard.  “Poisoned, or I'm a fool. And the secretary too!  Both dead not an hour after lunch!”

 

“By god!” cried Altazîr, seemingly at a loss for words.

 

“That makes you the director, I suppose,” said the soldier.

 

Altazîr did not look particularly pleased.  The life expectancy of a Gondorian commanding officer in Umbar was getting shorter every day.

 

“It would appear your ‘secure location’ has been somewhat exaggerated,” complained Thorongil.

 

“Yes indeed,” replied Altazîr.  He called loudly to a soldier of the guard.  “Lead these men to the central palace!” he commanded.

 

“Amdirien, I recommend we return to the ship,” whispered Thorongil.

 

“I will not run like a frightened rabbit back to her hole,” replied the Princess sharply.  “People are dying to defend this city, and I will show them my faith and trust.”

 

Pedron was of a mind like Thorongil, but he held his tongue.  Anders agreed with Amdirien.

 

Led by the local guardsman they walked for many miles down wide streets of ornate stone buildings predating anything in central Gondor.  Millennia of war and strife had done little to dull Numenorean stonework from the height of their power. They passed many buildings which Amdirien thought might be ‘the palace’ before reaching an enormous open square at least one thousand feet wide.

 

It was paved with countless marble stones of alternating black and white.  So finely were they cut that no mortar lay between them, and one could only tell where one stone ended and another began by the change in color.  In the center of the square stood an obelisk seven-hundred and seventy-seven feet tall. It was covered in gold, and though the sun had set it shone brightly against the darkening sky.

 

‘Ar-Pharazôn’s Tower’ it was commonly called, for it had been built by the Golden King of Numenor who thought himself above even the gods of old.  And why should he not? Even with his Ruling Ring Sauron had cowered before him.

 

They marvelled at the towering spike of glowing gold as they walked across the empty plaza.  On the far side they came to massive building with a elegant domed roof in its center.

 

“The Golden Palace, Your Majesty,” said their guide with a bow.

 

Thorongil felt inclined to point out that the palace was made of grey marble, not gold.

 

“You'll have to ask a historian about that,” replied the guard.

 

It had once been gold - when it was expanded and redecorated during Ar-Pharazôn’s rule.  The gold plating had long ago been stripped away from everything but the inside of the domed ceiling over the central ballroom, which was impossible to reach without impractical effort.  The wealth had likely gone to finance wars against Gondor, or Sauron’s campaigns in the North and East. The enchanted gold on the obelisk outside could not be so easily removed.

 

They were greeted by many men with long bureaucratic titles; Elerína would have been intrigued, but Thorongil was not.  He couldn't care less who the deputy commissioner of fisheries was. Seemingly everyone with an office in the palace lined up to introduce themselves to the Princess.

 

“I suppose this is as exciting as their lives get,” muttered Thorongil mockingly.

 

That night the Princess was given a stately room high in the palace, and her guard took rooms near hers.  Thorongil was unhappy that her room had a window and suggested she take one of her guards’ rooms instead, but she insisted that she would be fine.  To her surprise he let the matter rest without too much trouble. That night she wished she had taken his advice - not for security, but because some small bird or bat occasionally fluttered about in the rafters of her high ceilinged suite.


	2. Kneel

A shaft of morning sunlight blazed through Amdirien’s window and woke the Princess soon after dawn. Umbar was noticeably hotter than Minas Tirith, and Amdirien regretted much the clothing she had chosen to bring with her. She put on her lightest dress and went to find breakfast.

She found Captain Anders waiting for her just beyond her door.

“Good morning, Your Majesty,” he bowed. “Thorongil is already eating breakfast. Your guard is waiting.”

She, Anders, and half her guard went to the first floor of the palace where a once elegant dining room had been converted into a soldier’s mess. Some small barriers had been quickly erected in a corner to give the princess something of a private room to eat in. They took some cakes and meats and went to their table. Thorongil was already there, finishing his second plate. He didn't even stand up.

“You may sit,” teased the Princess with a wink.

Thorongil rolled his eyes and went to find more of the little cakes, which reminded him of a delicacy from his homeland across the sea.

While searching for a fresh plate of the desserts, Thorongil came across Altazîr, now Director of Internal Affairs. Both men of action, they spoke briefly of the most important of matters.

“Who is it that is killing your men?” asked Thorongil.

“That is no secret,” answered Altazîr. “They are called the Dead Hand. ‘Darkness Rises’ is their motto.”

Thorongil rolled his eyes. “They sound lovely.”

Altazîr continued his explanation. “They were one of Sauron’s chief sources of influence in Umbar for centuries - killing his enemies for profit and power. Now they fight for ‘independence.’”

“Why would they care who rules Umbar?”

“Most of our leadership believe them to be religious fanatics, but I believe they are being financed by a number of old and powerful families who want to see themselves once again ruling this city. The Hand have manpower and resources that can't be explained any other way. Contrary to popular sentiment in Minas Tirith, the people of Umbar generally disliked Sauron’s rule; I don't think that continued worship of Sauron could sustain their efforts.”

 

After breakfast the Princess insisted on seeing more of the city. She wished specifically to visit the legendary market square of Umbar. Despite Thorongil's complaints about security Amdirien would not be denied.

With Anders and her entire guard, plus Thorongil, Altazîr, and a few other bureaucrats with nothing better to do, Amdirien was led to the market square. To say that it lived up to its fame hardly does it justice. It was a massive open square, paved like Ar-Pharazon’s plaza outside the Palace, but far bigger. All around the perimeter were four story stone buildings filled with shops of every kind imaginable. The merchants within had more for sale than all of Minas Tirith’s shops combined, but they were only half of it! The paved square was so densely covered with wooden stalls and carpets offering various goods that it looked as if Amdirien could have spent all her share of the royal treasury and hardly made a dent in it.

“In case you find something interesting…” said the Princess, handing small pouches of her own coin to each of her guards as well as Thorongil. Amdirien, unlike most nobility, chose her guard from young soldiers with considerable combat experience. She was keenly aware that most of them would have preferred a combat assignment to guard duty, so she did what she could to make it feel worth their while.

For many hours Princess Amdirien looked through the market stalls, and all that time Thorongil carefully followed her - more carefully than her guards, who eagerly looked for a use of the coin she had given them. Only Anders kept rigorously to his duty; there was nothing he needed and Amdirien was his friend as well as his charge. Fate was not with her guardians, however, and in the bustling market even the most dedicated might succumb to distraction.

The three came upon a wooden storefront showing many exotic and well crafted weapons. Such things were of no interest to Her Majesty, but both Thorongil and Anders were intrigued. While the two men examined the tools of war, Amdirien stepped across the path to peruse some fine clothing. As she did so, a young woman - probably no more than sixteen - slipped up behind her.

In a city as large as Umbar one should expect plenty of petty theft. Even among great cities, Umbar had more than its share of pickpockets. This woman was such a thief, and made barely enough to feed and clothe herself. She carefully reached into Her Majesty's coin purse.

While Amdirien never had bothered training in the arts of war, the blood of Melian flowed in her veins, same as her brother’s. Without even knowing why, she instinctively grabbed the thief’s arm and a small struggle ensued. Thorongil felt the threat also and drew his sword. He pushed his way through the crowd to her aid.

Amdirien did not want a fight, but as Thorongil and Anders - followed quickly by the rest of her guard plus Altazîr with several local soldiers - came rushing up the thief panicked. She drew a knife and backed into a corner holding Amdirien hostage, the knife at her throat.

“Stay away!” she shouted. “Stay back!”

“Everyone stay calm!” said the Princess, terrified as she was. “We can resolve this…”

She was going to say ‘peacefully,’ but Thorongil was not going to risk her life to any chance but his own. He threw out his hand in a strange gesture at Amdirien, and his black armor materialized; not on him but on her! It was restructured to fit her form perfectly, and it included a cowl so that she was armored from the base of her neck all the way to her nose.

Thorongil rushed at the Princess and pushed her aside as the thief stood befuddled. He kicked the pickpocket to the ground and stood over her, the tip of his sword on her neck.

Amdirien slowly stood up. She felt very strange wearing nothing but the weightless, cold metal. As she got her bearings, Altazîr ordered two of his men to arrest the thief.

“Another for the gallows!” he sighed.

“Please no!” begged the thief. “Mercy!”

Altazîr waved to his men to take her away despite her pleading.

“Wait,” stammered Amdirien, regaining her wits as Thorongil dispelled the armor with another gesture and her dress returned in its place.

“She threatened the life of an heir to the crown!” replied Altazîr. “Not to mention attempted robbery.” He gestured again to his guards to take the thief away.

Thorongil turned to the nearest soldier and poked his hand gently with his sword as the man went to grab the thief. “You will wait for Her Majesty’s approval!” he growled.

“This girl will not hang on my account,” Amdirien declared.

Altazîr stepped beside the girl himself and Thorongil raised his sword. By now a large crowd had gathered around the commotion. With hundreds of eyes and ears upon her, Amdirien turned away from Thorongil and Altazîr to face the majority of the gathered crowd, and spoke loudly.

“The authority of the crown to spare a life is even more essential than its authority to take it…”

“There must be consequences for such lawlessness! If holding a knife to the Princess’s throat is not a capital offense, what is?” interrupted Altazîr.

Forced to turn back around, Amdirien became really angry - and not with the criminal cowering at her feet. The Princess now felt far more inclined to send Altazîr to the gallows.

“Apparently some reminder of who rules this city is necessary,” she said loudly. “Kneel!”

At once Anders and her guards knelt. She turned quickly to the crowd, who also dropped to their knees. Though a criminal, the thief was one of their own, and they much preferred Amdirien’s talk to mercy to Altazîr’s cold ‘justice.’

The Princess suddenly realized a subtle flaw in her plan: Thorongil wouldn't kneel, and he was right next to Altazîr.

Amdirien slowly turned away from the crowd and to her amazement both were kneeling. After an audible sigh of relief, she continued.

“This thief didn't try to kill me when she had the chance, and I think she was even more afraid than I was. Her crimes are serious, and she certainly could hang for them, but I am under no obligation render any particular punishment for crimes committed against myself. I hope she learns from this nearly fatal mistake.”

“Yes Your Majesty,” squeaked the sobbing thief.

“Thorongil, escort her out of the market,” ordered the Princess with a glance at Altazîr implying that she didn't trust him to let her go, despite her orders. Thorongil despised the idea as well, for fear of danger to the Princess in his absence, but he did not publicly question her. He dragged the thief away through the crowd.

“Go buy yourself some food,” he whispered angrily as he let go of her arm near the edge of the market. He handed her a few of the coins Amdirien had given him. “Don't come back here. The guards will remember you.”

Amdirien was in no mood to remain in the market. As the excitement of her first brush with death wore off she felt very tired. After Thorongil returned she decided to return to the palace for lunch. She ate with only Thorongil and Anders.

 

“Thank you for saving me back there,” she said to the maia. “I was unaware that your armor could fit on other people.”

“Neither was I,” replied Thorongil tersely. That was the truth: he hadn't been sure it would work, and had been somewhat concerned that it would prove complicated to restore her clothing afterwards.

“We should be more careful in the future,” suggested Anders.

Amdirien looked ashamed. “You are probably right.”

Amdirien slipped away to ask one of the palace servants to find more of the cakes Thorongil had enjoyed in the morning. He had hardly spoken to her since the incident in the market. She had a good guess why. A few desserts was a relatively meaningless gesture, but she wanted to show him she was thinking about him now, despite forgetting about him earlier. Ten minutes later she gave him her little gift.

“I am terribly sorry about earlier, Thorongil; Captain!” said the Princess, adding his preferred style of address. “I didn't think at all about the position I was putting you in until I started to turn back around!”

“I know,” answered Thorongil, slowly cracking a smile. “It's not as if I haven't had to kneel in enemy territory before - at the throne of Melkor in Angband on a few occasions, for example. But if you tell anyone...”

“I won't, I swear!” Amdirien laughed. A comparison to first Great Enemy was not what she hoped for, but she far preferred his sarcasm to his silent brooding.

“What is our plan for this evening?” asked Anders.

“Nothing tonight, but there is a ball scheduled for tomorrow,” smiled the Princess. Thorongil did not look at all impressed. Even with his wife’s company he had little love for social gatherings; without her, he would be miserable.

“Would you care to leave me alone with the captain?” Amdirien asked Thorongil in the elder tongue, of which the Ranger was still ignorant. Thorongil nodded and took his cakes to his room.

“I was hoping you would accompany me?” continued Her Majesty.

“I assure you we will take every possible precaution,” began Anders.

“That isn't what I mean,” replied The Princess. “I want you there, and not as my guard, if you are willing. I can't, and would never, order you to of course, but…”

“I would be honored, your Majesty!” answered the Ranger. “I had no idea…”

“Really?” laughed the Princess. “Visits to the front, being recalled from combat to serve in my guard…”

“Well I didn't dare hope…”

“Start daring,” winked Amdirien.


	3. Panic at the Ballroom

Amdirien awoke once more to the warm sun of Umbar lighting her spacious bedroom. She cursed whatever flapping, fluttering creature lived above her bed and loved to move around at night before making her way down to breakfast. She found Thorongil at their table unamused by the lack of cakes.

Captain Anders was running furiously about, seeing to matters of security for the night’s royal ball. The local magistrates were terribly excited that they could now call it such, on account of the Princess’s attendance. She for her part was nervous, though she wasn't sure why. While she had no experience attending such events with a gentleman at her side, she did not believe that was what bothered her. The Ranger was so loyal to her, and so cautious around her, that he didn't worry her in the slightest. There was something else; something vaguely frightening that she could not put her finger on but knew with certainty lay before her.

“Thorongil, are you looking forward to the ball?” she asked as he looked dejectedly at his plate.

Thorongil looked slowly up at her. “Take a guess.”

“Then stay with my guard,” she suggested. “Help with the defense. I'm worried, Thorongil. Something dreadful weighs on me, like I've never felt before.”

Thorongil slowly nodded. Her tone worried him deeply.

“One other matter,” added Amdirien. “You can speak to birds, can't you?”

“Yes…” replied Thorongil suspiciously.

“Well, can you go up to my room and tell off whatever lives in my rafters?” asked the Princess.

Thorongil laughed merrily. “Of course! That is why I came with you. First rate protection against birds! I also do small dogs and cats, for a reasonable surcharge.”

He returned twenty minutes later. “She says she’ll try to be quiet, but you ought to remember she was there first.”

“Fair enough,” replied the Princess.

 

That afternoon Amdirien met with many more bureaucrats and ministers of every imaginable office. Thorongil paced nervously about the palace, memorizing a great deal of the internal layout - though not all of it, as you shall later see.

 

The ball was suitably grandiose. No expense was spared; so much so that Amdirien could not help but think that surely they could be sending a bit more in taxes back to the royal treasury. She and Anders enjoyed a full orchestra, the best food imaginable, and met every high-ranking official in the city and the surrounding region. There was a great deal of dancing - far more than Anders was comfortable with - and many stories of war were told. At the latter, the Ranger excelled.

As the evening went on, Anders found to his great joy that he was not the only Ranger present. He eagerly introduced the captain of the Rangers in the south, Gadron, to Princess Amdirien. She politely shook his hand and let the two soldiers talk for a while.

“I need more wine,” said Amdirien, reaching the bottom of her glass. “Would you like anything?”

“I can get that!” replied Captain Anders. “I'll only be a moment!”

“Nonsense,” laughed the Princess. “You finally found someone interesting to talk too!”

“But Your Majesty...” objected Anders.

“I told you to call me Amdirien. You’re not here as my servant; I shall get my own drink. Do you want anything?”

“No Your… Amdirien,” replied Anders, audibly uncomfortable addressing her by her given name.

Amdirien smiled and walked off to the kitchens to find more wine. She found Pedron, Captain of the Tar-Minyatur, there for the same purpose.

“Enjoying your party?” he asked. “They clearly pulled out all the stops for this.”

“Seeing as I arrived only two days ago I can hardly take credit for that,” she laughed. “I wonder if they often hold such events? Even in Minas Tirith we rarely have such opulent gatherings.”

“As a matter of fact they do,” said Altazîr, joining them as well. “If they devoted half the effort to bringing order to this city as they spend dining and dancing, Umbar would be safe and secure.”

As though to prove his point in the most horrifying fashion, there came suddenly a great sound of screaming from the hallway that led back to the ballroom. The cries were terrible to hear: surely it was murder, and they did not cease. Pedron, who had fought in the defense of Pelargir against the corsairs of Sauron, knew well the cries of men and women facing certain death. He knew immediately that an ambush and a slaughter must be upon them.

“We need to get you out of here!” he told the Princess decisively.

“Anders is back there!” she objected.

“There is nothing we could do to help him!” replied the sea captain, taking her by the arm with one hand and grabbing a particularly long carving knife in the other. “He would want you think only of your safety.”

“Go through that door, turn left, then the third right, then the second left!” said Altazîr. He went rushing out of the room and turned right, to go back down towards to ballroom. “I'll try to marshal a defense!”

Amdirien dared not argue with Pedron. He had infinitely more experience in dangerous situations, and he was right - there was absolutely nothing they could do to help Anders. He led her exactly as Altazîr has suggested, and they came to a small door leading out of the palace. She could hear the sound of pouring rain outside. She went to turn the handle.

“Wait!” whispered Pedron. He looked up and saw a small glass window above the door: the sort one often finds when the ceiling is much higher than an exterior door frame. “I shall lift you up; tell me if you see anyone.”

Captain Pedron slowly lifted the Princess up until she could just see the street outside. To her horror four figures in black hoods stood just beyond the door.

“Put me down!” she hissed, afraid to be seen. “Four men who look most unfriendly!”

Pedron quickly but quietly locked the door.

“I think I saw another way out, back a short ways,” he said. “Follow me, as quietly as you can.”

The snuck back a hundred yards and took a different turn. There were now sounds of fighting from many directions. The Dead Hand had made their play, and the men of Gondor seemed not to be faring well.

They came to another small door. This one had no glass.

“I'll slip out, and you lock the door behind me,” said Pedron. “I'll knock in a common children’s tune if its safe. Otherwise, you hide in a dark room and hope for the best!”

Amdirien nodded, shaking with fear. Pedron did as he said and after what felt like an age, but was really only thirty seconds, a Gondorian nursery rhyme was tapped on the door. Amdirien unlocked it and peered out.

“We need to hurry!” whispered Pedron.

Amdirien slipped out into the pouring rain. They were at the back of the palace. Not a soul was to be seen. They quickly scurried across an empty street and into an alley. The made their way between buildings until they had to cross a wide boulevard which led by the palace. Leaning out from their small side-street they could see the door they would have left by earlier. Four black cloaked figures stood in the gloom.

“Don't run across,” cautioned Pedron. “They have no reason to suspect we have anything to do with their business. We are just two pour souls caught in this dreadful storm walking home.”

Amdirien nodded, too frightened to speak. They boldly crossed the road. She dared not look to see if their foes marked their passage. As soon as they had crossed they made their way with deliberate speed towards the docks. Pedron meant to lead her back to his ship, and isolate her from the rest of the city. They walked for hours, trying when they could to hide from unnecessary eyes.

“Tell me about yourself,” stammered Amdirien through labored breaths. She hoped his voice would calm her nerves.

“I have been a captain for more than half my life,” he replied. “I commanded a small ship in the battle at Pelargir against the corsairs during the War of the Ring. Since then I have turned down every promotion beyond captain; you can't do as much good from an admiral's office, I think.”

“They don't get to save Princesses,” he added with a smile and a pat on her back. “You'll get through this, I promise. Next week we’ll be celebrating my hundred birthday, and the horrors of tonight will feel like just a bad dream.”

“One hundred!” gasped Amdirien. “You don't look it.”

“My wife says otherwise!” Pedron laughed. “Me and the other captains used to joke that that was what we were fighting for: beat Sauron’s legions so one of us could reach the century mark. I'm the last of that bunch, I'm afraid, but I haven’t long to go.”

They approached the dock where the Tar-Minyatur stood docked, towering even above the other warships along the waterfront. It was nearly midnight, and the storm made it hard for Amdirien to see more than twenty yards in front of her, save when lightning struck. Pedron’s first officer stood on the pier, which looked oddly abandoned.

“This feels wrong,” Pedron whispered. “Why is only my first mate in sight? I do hope the enemy hasn't taken the ship! Wait here, while I go investigate.”

Amdirien waited by the building closest to the pier while Pedron went to inquire as to the situation.

“What news?” he cried. “Is the ship secure.”

“It's rather complicated sir,” Amdirien heard his officer reply.

“Well do explained…” began the captain.

Then in a flash of lightning Amdirien saw that the first mate held a drawn sword by his side. Before she or Pedron realized what was happening, his first mate stabbed him through the stomach and pushed him into the sea. Amdirien’s heart froze. Her last ally was dead, and at the hand of his own officer. She was alone, betrayed, and surrounded by potential foes. Anders might already be dead, and Thorongil was nowhere to be seen.

She felt very dizzy, and she stumbled for the door of the building she huddled against. Her only thought was to go away from this terrible place. To her surprise she found that she stumbled into a tavern, and a busy one at that. Then to her horror she found that many of the men in the tavern were sailors and soldiers from the Tar-Minyatur.

She took a seat at the end of the bar and turned her head to the wall.

“What’ll it be?” asked the barman.

“What?” she replied. “Nothing at the moment. I must first dry off a bit, if you don't mind, before I can even think of food. Do you know…”

Suddenly she was cut off by the sound of a voice she knew, and as she recognized it she grew even more afraid than she had been outside. It was the first mate.

“We sail for Gondor!” he roared. He then began giving orders to his men.

Of all the terrors and excitement Amdirien would face in Umbar, it was these moments that were the hardest for her to bear. Every second felt like an hour. The first mate knew her - he had dined with her more than once on the voyage south. At any moment he might spot her, sitting in a corner, and that would be the end of her. She sat silent, looking away from him, praying to Elbereth and all the Valar that he wouldn't notice her, but as he droned on and on she lost hope.

“Everyone get a move on, last man to the ship sleeps on the deck!” he roared, and all his men rushed out.

Then she heard footsteps walk up to her. She closed her eyes and silently begged the Valar for their protection.

“Have you decided if you want something?” said the barman’s voice.

She carefully turned to look at him. The first mate was gone, along with his men.


	4. The Long Night of Solace

Amdirien reached into her pockets.

‘Damn!’ she thought. ‘No money! Why should I have money? There was no need for coin at the ball. The ball! I hope Anders is alright!’

She shook herself clean of thoughts of the terrors of earlier to consider the horrors of the present. The Tar-Minyatur would soon be gone, and it was held against her. Her last ally, Captain Pedron, lay dead in the harbor, killed by his own first mate. Who now could she trust?

She knew the answer to the last question: no one but Thorongil and Anders, if they lived.

“Miss, if you aren't gonna order something, I'm gonna close,” said the barman, interrupting her train of thought.

“I haven't got any money,” she replied. “I could trade you my necklace.”

The barman wasn't interested. “Its money or nothing! Says so on the sign!”

“Then I guess I better be going,” she sighed. “Unless you'd like some help cleaning up in exchange for a meal?”

Amdirien hadn't cleaned anything in her life, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Already her head was clearing and one thing was certain: it would be no use evading her enemies if she starved to death in the meantime.

“You help straighten out the tables and bring me the dishes, and I'll give you the rest of the soup and the bread,” said the barman. He thought he was getting a bargain; the soup would otherwise be thrown in the sea!

Amdirien kept up her end of the arrangement, and the barkeep was surprised at her strength as she easily repositioned his heavy oak tables. When she had brought him the last few used plates he gladly gave her a fresh bowl of soup and a generous helping of bread, plus a bit of cheese for good measure. She was most excited about the clean water; she drank three glasses.

“Please finish up as soon as you can,” said the landlord after giving her the third glass. “My wife expected me home an hour ago.”

“I'm sorry,” said Amdirien, quickly finishing up. “Thank you for the food and drink.”

“My pleasure!” he replied. “Good night to you!”

Amdirien considered asking the man if she could stay the night at his house, but she thought better of it. He was polite, but once news was spread that she was missing the wrong sorts of people might offer a handsome reward for her capture.

To her relief the storm had died down considerably over the past hour. She slipped out into the streets of Umbar and found a quiet alley to hide in. As she cowered in a little inset in the brick wall of a large building she got to wondering about how things had unfolded over the past six hours, and as so often happens when people are down on their luck she was looking for people to blame.

‘Where is Thorongil!’ she thought. ‘The greatest soldier in history as my guardian and here I sit cowering in the rain with him nowhere to be found! Some job he is doing!’

But the more she sat there, contemplating whether to try to sleep on the cold wet stone, the more confused she became. Why would Thorongil have left her side? At first that seemed obvious: she had told him to. But as her father was quick to point out, neither Elerína nor her husband were much for taking orders from mortals.

Suddenly her theorizing was interrupted by the frightening realization that she was being watched. Two glints of moonlight betrayed the location of a pair of little eyes sat high on the wall in front of her. As she squinted to make out what sort of creature they belonged to she realized there was a bat, about a foot tall, sitting on a loose brick extending from the building across from her, about twenty feet further down the alley.

A clever string of observations was forming in her mind. ‘Thorongil didn't object to me sleeping alone in a room with a window, he didn't object to me attending the ball without him at my side, and he hasn't found me now. Perhaps it isn't that he can't find me, perhaps he doesn't think he needs to.’

Amdirien stood up and whispered loudly to the bat. “Gwethien! Gwethien! Is that you?”

The furry creature nodded its head.

Amdirien held out her arm. “If that's you, Gwethien, come down here!”

After a moment the bat lept from its perch and swooped towards the Princess. While scarcely a foot tall, the bat had a wingspan of nearly six feet - the alley was hardly wide enough for it to fully unfold its wings. At the sight of the now giant winged creature bearing down on her Amdirien gasped, let out a bit of a shriek, and threw herself to the ground. The bat flew over her and landed on a barrel in the alley.

As Amdirien got up she saw the bat sitting on the barrel, staring at her with its head cocked to one side. It looked very confused.

“You’re bigger than you look!” laughed Amdirien, the first time she had laughed in what now felt like forever. She walked up the barrel and again held out her arm. “Gwethien?”

The bat hopped onto her arm. She winced in pain as its claws dug into her skin. “You're Gwethien, right?”

The bat nodded, then winked.

“Normal bats can't wink,” Amdirien assured herself.

Devoid of all companionship in this horrible circumstance, the small furry bat on her arm looked rather adorable with its fox-like head and short grey fur. She soon found herself holding the little animal against her chest, petting its head.

It was only after ten minutes or so that she remembered that this bat was Gwethien, who’s true name was Thuringwethil, messenger of Sauron and a queen among the vampires. She probably, most likely, almost certainly did not appreciate being petted.

Amdirien looked slowly down at the bat and saw on its face a look of such exaggerated disappointment and disdain that Amdirien couldn't help but giggle.

“I'm sorry Gwethien, but I needed that. When this is over I promise you'll be well rewarded.”

Now that she felt slightly more safe, Amdirien was overcome with the desire to sleep. She asked the bat to keep watch and managed to sleep for a few hours in the cold stone alley before waking at the crack of dawn. The bat sat beside her.

“We need a plan,” the Princess yawned.

Gwethien spoke in a high pitched hiss. “Mirumor.”

“Mirumor?” muttered the Princess. “Where did she say she lived…”

Mirumor’s address was not something she had expected to need to remember, but by Varda’s grace she managed it. The sorceress had mentioned it more than once during the voyage south. Of course, Amdirien had no clue where 128 Amandil Street would be, but she hoped she could find someone to tell her.

She wandered out into the bustling streets of Umbar and cautiously made her way back towards the middle of the city, keenly aware that she was heading towards the palace and potentially danger. Her instincts told her she had escaped more than a simple assassination; the force defending of the palace had been significant, and it must have taken considerable effort to defeat it. She feared a coup, and had no way to know who had won it. She had no intention of waltzing back into the palace to ask.

She came by good fortune upon a jewelry shop, and quickly went through what she was wearing - which was worth a small fortune, as one might expect of the King’s eldest daughter - hoping to find something without her named engraved upon it. It would do no good to try to pawn jewelry that identified her. Fortunately she wore both a ring and a necklace that could not be easily traced to her.

It says something about the confidence she now had in her chances that she chose to keep the necklace for no other reason than that she liked it. She went in and haggled a bit with the owner over the value of her ring. She got less than a tenth of what she paid for it on the sixth level of Minas Tirith, but it would be enough to last a few days.

Then a few blocks later, as she approached the central market, she saw an in interesting looking establishment. ‘Maps’ read the sign.

‘Perhaps they have a map of the city,’ she thought.

As a matter of fact they did. They had a seemingly infinite number. The proprietor eagerly showed her an exquisite map.

“Actually, sir, I was looking for something smaller,” smiled the Princess. The maps he was suggesting were the size of a small wall.

“Smaller?” he replied. “I have every size map you could want! How much smaller?”

“The smallest you have that shows Amandil Street,” she replied.

The salesman found this a fascinating request, for no other reason than that he had never heard it before. He immediately disappeared into a back room and rummaged through a thousand maps of Umbar he had bought or drawn himself over the years.

“This, I promise, is the smallest map on this good earth that shows Amandil Street!” he proudly declared. It was a fold-up map of Umbar’s north quarter. He pointed to Amandil Street.

“How much?” she asked.

“Fifty silver,” said the merchant. That was a steep price, but Amdirien wanted no trouble.

“Do you have a cheap map of the entire city?” she asked.

“I've got this for five,” he said. Concerned that she might take it and not the expensive one, he had a proposal. “I'll throw it in free!”

“Deal!” agreed the Princess. It was half her takings from the jewelry shop but she now could plot a route to Mirumor’s neighborhood without having to ask anyone for help and risk them guessing her business.

She spent a few moments more in the shop, studying her maps, before setting off on a wide loop north then east, to avoid the palace on her way towards Mirumor. It was about two in the afternoon when Mirumor came to Amandil Street, house number 317. She had a long way still to walk. After half an hour she came to the door labeled 128. She knocked shyly.

“Who is it?” hissed a voice from within.

“Amy,” she replied, suddenly needed a shortening of her name. “I was hoping to see Mirumor.”

“Mir, do you know an Amy,” yelled the cold, shrill voice. ‘No’ was the answer.

“She says she doesn't know you,” replied the voice.

“Fifty silver says she does!” replied Amdirien.

“Well that's different,” laughed the voice. “Come on in.”

The door opened and a decrepit looking woman wearing a long hood opened the door. “I shall want to see the silver first.”

Amdirien handed her the coin from her pocket. “I'll be taking this back,” she said.

Despite the rather strange appearance of the woman at the door, Amdirien walked in and up the stairs that immediately confronted her. She came to a small dining room, where Mirumor sat studying a map. The old woman followed behind her; she moved quickly for her apparent age.

“Am… Amy!” Mirumor gasped. “What are you doing here?”

“That's a long tale!” answered the Princess.

‘All day to think and I haven't thought of a cover story,’ she thought to herself. ‘I really am terrible at this.’

“My ship left without me!” she continued. “I was hoping I could stay with you for the night.”

“Well you gave me a place to stay in Minas Tirith,” replied Mirumor, “so that sounds fair.”

Mirumor turned to the old woman. “Mum, this is Amy.”

‘Mum?’ thought Amdirien. ‘She looks old enough to be her great grandmother!’

“An odd name for a Gondorian woman,” observed Mirumor’s mother.

“Well it isn't her real name of course!” replied Mirumor, who could spin a lie far faster than the Princess. “Even I don't know her given name! In her line of work, best not to know.”

“And what may that be?” asked the old woman.

“She knows people in Gondor,” smiled Mirumor. “The sorts of people who don't ask pesky questions when you want to sell them something.”

“Let the poor girl talk,” laughed Mirumor’s mother. “But my, what a useful business to be in!” she added with a nod to the Princess, who she now thought was a fence!

Amdirien sat down at the table next to Mirumor.

“You look terrible!” observed her mother - a particularly cutting remark coming from someone who looked half in the grave herself.

“I went down to the docks last night and my ship had left!” answered Amdirien, getting comfortable with her assumed persona. “They were gone, and with all my things too! All I had was this dress and the coin in my pocket!”

“What dreadful weather to be caught in,” said the old woman. She sat down across the table from Amdirien. “Mir, go fetch your friend a clean dress!”

“Yes mother,” replied the young sorceress.

As Mirumor ran into an adjoining room, which Amdirien could see was a bedroom, Mirumor’s mother leaned back in her chair and pushed back her hood. The sight chilled Amdirien to the bone.

Across her forehead was burned into her skin a pair of words in black speech. On either cheek she was branded with the lidless eye. She had no hair, but her skin was smooth; perhaps she was not as old as she seemed from her hunched appearance and raspy voice.

Amdirien spent much too long staring.

“Is something wrong?” hissed the witch.

“No ma’am,” replied Amdirien trying to sound unintimidated but failing miserably. “I know only a little black speech… may I asked what it says?”

“Darkness Rises.”


	5. Sins of the Father

“Come here, Amy!” called Mirumor from her bedroom. “Try this on.”

Amdirien quickly hurried away from Mirumor’s mother, closing the bedroom door behind her.

“Am I safe here?” she asked in a hushed whisper. She went to the window and opened it a foot.

“Probably,” answered Mirumor.

Suddenly Gwethien, in bat form, swooped into the room from outside, having to almost entirely fold her wings to fit through the small window. She landed on a bedpost and looked back and forth between Amdirien and Mirumor, hoping for a compliment on her fancy flying.

“Well now you are safe!” laughed the sorceress. Her mother was much more gifted with magic than she was - a gift from the Nazgûl long ago - but Mirumor guessed Gwethien was capable of far beyond what any mortal could learn.

Amdirien was disappointed in the available clothing; everything Mirumor owned was red, tight, and revealing. Beggars can't be choosers, as the saying goes, so she took the least objectionable option. It felt good to be out of her blue dress, which after a night spent in the pouring rain had been thoroughly ruined.

She spent the remainder of the afternoon in Mirumor’s bedroom with Gwethien. It says a lot about her state of mind that she took such solace in the vampire's presence. Safe indoors with such a formidable protector, her fear began to melt away. In its place came anger and hatred.

She struggled in vain to keep Captain Pedron’s death from her mind. A hero of the war against Sauron deserved better than to die unceremoniously on the dock beside his own ship. There would be no glorious tale of his fall - there could not even be a proper burial; his body would rot in the sea. She wasn't yet sure who the mastermind behind her misfortune would turn out to be, but she could not imagine hating them more than the treacherous first mate of the Tar-Minyatur.

She found herself again consoling herself by caressing the bat that sat on her bedpost. It was of course Mirumor’s bed she was sitting on, but one must forgive the Princess for laying claim to the young sorceress’s bedroom in such a time of crisis. As it was, Gwethien again felt miserable being relegated to the princess’s pet.

“Were you the little flying creature that fluttered around in my rafters in the palace?” asked Amdirien suddenly.

“Yes,” replied the bat in a quiet hiss.

“You could have been a little quieter,” smiled Amdirien.

“Do you have any idea how hard it was to watch you sleep and not bite?” hissed the Vampire.

“I hadn't thought about that,” muttered Amdirien.

Then a terrible thought came into her mind, and she could not keep it out. She knew her parents wouldn't approve, nor Elerína, nor anyone else, but she didn't care. They hadn't seen Pedron die.

“When this is over, if I get the chance,” said Amdirien slowly to the vampire, “I'll repay you in what you want most.”

Gwethien slowly turned to face her. “I'll hold you to that.”

“No, you won't,” replied Amdirien sharply.

“Time for dinner, Amy,” called Mirumor.

Amdirien went out to the dining room and joined Mirumor and her mother for dinner. It was extremely good.

‘I suppose some of Sauron’s servants appreciate proper cuisine,’ thought Amdirien.

 

As dinner came to a close they heard the door at the bottom of the stairs unlock and open.

“Father!” exclaimed Mirumor excitedly.

A tall man in a light armor and a black hood came stomping up the stairs. He was soaked to the bone.

“Traitor!” he roared. He reached the top of the stairs and smashed an expensive looking glass vase sitting on a sideboard.

“Everyone's dead!” he ranted. “We’re all dead!”

“Control yourself!” hissed Mirumor’s mother.

Mirumor’s father slammed his fist on the table. “You don't understand! Everyone is dead. They raided the cistern. Hundreds of his best men! Only about twenty of us made it out. The entire inner circle were executed, all the archives were burned, and those who tried to flee were slaughtered.”

“Who? Who did this?” asked Mirumor.

“Altazîr! That damn traitor!” shouted the man. “We killed everyone in his way, and he promised us power.”

“I suppose we outlived our usefulness,” observed Mirumor’s mother coldly. She had seen too much murder and betrayal to be surprised by anything.

“We suffered significant casualties at the palace - to a warrior in black, with powers like we haven't seen since the Nazgûl!” continued Mirumor’s father. “But we got all our original targets, and plenty more! The Princess escaped, but she was not part of the bargain.”

Amdirien smiled. Thorongil had not been idle, it seemed. The Dead Hand was crippled. Altazîr would need to be dealt with, but at least she now knew her foe. Her smile quickly vanished as the man continued.

“Perhaps we can still find the Princess. Altazîr won't last long as lord of Umbar with her death on his watch. Tall and fair, wearing a blue dress and a diamond necklace.”

Amdirien was foolishly still wearing her necklace.

Mirumor’s witch of a mother turned menacingly towards her. “What and interesting description, wouldn't you say… Amy?”

Mirumor covertly reached for her crossbow, which sat by her on a side table. Mirumor's father took a moment to understand his wife; he had assumed that Amdirien was one of Mirumor’s many associates, all of whom he would have expected to support the Dead Hand.

“Well, your majesty,” mocked the witch, “what good fortune could possibly have led you here?”

Amdirien did not try to deny it. She stood up and backed towards the door to Mirumor’s room. “Your daughter knows how profitable working with me can be.”

Mirumor’s father reached for his dagger. “While I sure your father would pay handsomely for your safe return, I'll settle for one last glorious kill for the Dead Hand.”

Mirumor stood between her parents and the Princess, her crossbow at the ready. “You don't want to do this!”

“It won't bring Sauron back, but it'll hurt Aragorn,” hissed the witch. “So I'm quite sure I do!” The brand marks on her cheeks and forehead flashed and flickered like freshly burnt coals.

“We’ll all die for it!” warned Mirumor. “The balance of power is against us. There are worse things than men and elves in service to Gondor now!”

As Mirumor’s father stepped towards the Princess his daughter cocked her weapon. “Please don't do this father.”

“Stand aside!” roared her mother. “How can you defended the daughter of our enemy!”

“Your enemy!” replied Mirumor. “I wasn't even alive for that war. And even if I had been, I am not dying for your vengeance!”

Mirumor’s father was a bit concerned by his daughters words. His daughter was bold and daring, and he could see that she was mortally afraid of harm coming to the Princess. Mirumor’s mother was undeterred, and a web of shadow formed about her hands.

Amdirien bravely stepped up beside the young sorceress.

“The question is not whether you can hurt me and survive - you can not” she boldly proclaimed. “The question you should ask yourself is who do you hate more, me or Altazîr. He has betrayed me as well. You may try to hurt my father through me, or you can step aside and let me kill the man who used you to seize power before butchering your friends like animals.”

Mirumor’s parents hesitated and looked to each other.

“Do you really think Altazîr, who has played us all for fools, doesn't have a plan for how to handle my death at your hands.?” continued the Princess. “He ordered you to do it! It’s me or him, and try as you might, it won't be me.”

Mirumor's parents had not expected such strength and courage from the Princess. They expected her last words to be pitiful pleas for mercy, not bold threats. They began to suspect that she held a card they did not even know was in play; though they would never of guessed it to be a vampire in their daughter’s bedroom!

“You promise you'll kill Altazîr?” asked Mirumor’s father.

Amdirien nodded. “If what you say is true, he will die a traitor’s death.”

“Don't fail,” hissed the witch.

“You’re coming too,” said the Princess to Mirumor.

“What; me?” replied the sorceress. “I don't think so! This is clearly an internal matter…”

Amdirien rolled her eyes. “We’ll need money, and bring your weapons. You'll be well paid - how does three thousand silver sound.”

“That, and I want a knife from the Nazgûl’s armory,” she demanded.

“Done,” nodded Amdirien.

“Just tell me who to pay and who to kill!” replied the sorceress excitedly.

Mirumor and Amdirien retired to the sorceress’s bedroom.

“You have to get me the knife, and keep Thorongil from taking it from me!” Mirumor whispered.

Amdirien nodded. “I'll try. I'm not sure Thorongil will ever listen to me again, after this mess I have dragged him into.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” replied Mirumor. “He's probably having an excellent time!”

Amdirien and Mirumor left immediately. Over the course of the next four hours they made their way back towards the dock where the Tar-Minyatur had been moored. It was slow going; Altazîr had greatly increased the number of patrols throughout his city. It was nearly midnight when Mirumor and the Princess reached the tavern where she had sought shelter only twenty-four hours before.

The tavern was full and the crowd merry - a much different atmosphere than the rest of the city now grumbling about a curfew, one of many new measures instituted by the Director of Internal Affairs to ‘restore order’ to the city. The vast majority of patrons were sailors who cared nothing for the local politics.

Looking carefully from table to table, Amdirien found what she desperately sought; sitting apart from the crowd was a figure in a grey cloak and hood, sipping a glass of wine. Under his cloak could be seen black armor, and he passed the time spinning a silver knife in his right hand.

Amdirien rushed over to him. “Thorongil!”

Thorongil slowly looked up. He gestured to the chair across from him with a smile and wink. He did his best impression of Her Majesty: “You may sit.”


	6. It's Treason, Then?

If you, like Amdirien, are interested in how Thorongil had spent the twenty-eight hours that passed between the ball and his meeting the Princess in the tavern by the docks, you must go back to the moment chaos struck the palace. Thorongil was prowling about the side corridors - Altazîr had suggested he watch the south wing, which was the least heavily guarded. Though he was much further away, he heard the same scream from the ballroom which Amdirien did. He rushed through empty hallways and came a few minutes later to the site of the carnage. He pulled a silver dagger from each of his sleeves.

He came to one of the four great doors to the ballroom - in any ordinary setting they would have passed for massive wooden gates. They were twenty feet tall at their center and more than half a foot thick. Two black robed figures stood guard. They had hardly raised their weapons when they each were felled by a silver dagger to the neck. Thorongil took his weapons from their bodies before they had even hit the floor.

He gave the great doors a push and as he expected they proved to be barred against him. He spoke a word in his native tongue which had shattered far stronger doors than these, and with a tap of his finger the doors exploded inwards, sending four black robed figures, who had been holding the door against him, tumbling backwards and impaled by large splinters of wood. As Thorongil entered the ballroom his black armor appeared upon him and a black sword sprang from his hand.

In the enormous gold-ceilinged central chamber of the palace all the guests were huddled in one corner. More than a dozen men armed for battle assailed them while more held closed the remaining three doors. The nobility of Umbar were being quickly cut down, all the ball attendees could use in their defense were cutlery, pieces of furniture, and musical instruments. One former soldier was doing particularly well with an oboe, and Anders was holding off two cultists with a wooden chair. Despite their gallant efforts at least fourty men and women lay dead on the polished marble floor.

At the sight of Thorongil, with his black clothing and red fire in his eyes, the remaining loyal men and women of Gondor lost all hope. This, surely, was leader of their the enemies. The cultist were confused, unsure what new power had interrupted their slaughter.

The people of Gondor’s spirits rose as Thorongil threw a dagger into the nearest assassin of the Dead Hand.

“Grab his sword!” he yelled, and one of the nearest Gondorians did so. As ten cultist descended on Thorongil he quickly cut them down. As he killed more of his enemies the tide quickly turned. More and more weapons were taken from slain assassins and the slaughter turned to a proper battle.

The Dead Hand soon retreated. Thorongil found Anders. “Where's the Princess?” he roared.

“She went to get more wine!” he replied. They both sprinted to the door the Princess had left by only minutes. Gadron, the Ranger who Anders had befriended minutes prior, followed behind them. Altazîr almost crashed into Anders as he came running in by the same door.

“Where's Amdirien?” shouted Anders.

“I sent her to her guard,” he replied. “Take a right, then the second left, then the third right!”

Thorongil and Anders nodded. Followed by Gadron, commander of the Rangers in the city, they rushed along the path prescribed for them. They came to a small door that led outside. Thorongil nearly broke the handle of the door as he rushed out.

Thorongil and the two Rangers found the Princess’s guard but no Princess, and they weren't properly outside the Palace. They were in a walled garden, and though they knew it not, they are far from the door Amdirien had been sent to. The pouring rain dampened both clothes and spirits.

Thorongil was furious. “Search around the palace for the Princess, but I don't think you will find her.”

“We have to find her!” cried Anders. “Alone in this hostile city, hunted by who knows what...”

“She's not alone,” began Thorongil.

Suddenly the door back into the palace, the only door out of the little garden, shut and locked. Anders knocked furiously.

“We are betrayed,” growled Thorongil.

“How else could so many enemies get into the palace?” asked Gadron.

“They didn't just get in,” observed Anders, “they made it all the way to the ballroom without anyone raising the alarm. Not a sound!”

Thorongil pulled a rope with a metal hook from behind his cloak. He tossed it up a wall of the garden and it hooked itself to the top.

“You never know when you'll need rope!” said Anders.

One by one they climbed the wall. It was a long drop on the other side but they all survived it. Last of all came Thorongil, bringing the rope with him.

“Trust no one,” he advised.

Turning to Gadron, Thorongil asked where the Rangers made camp. With that information he set off into the night.

 

Moving with incredible speed he creeped around the perimeter of the palace grounds until he found a few assassins of the Dead Hand waiting by a door. He observed them from a distance.

“This is taking too long,” grumbled one.

“How long do we wait?” asked another.

Suddenly there came shouting, and a number of guards came charging down the road. The black figures rushed down an alley and disappeared into the night - or so they believed. Thorongil trailed them at considerable distance, but there was no risk that The Predator would lose his prey. He tracked them for more than an hour into a disheveled part of the city.

Coming around a corner Thorongil found that suddenly the cultists had vanished. There was no sign of them! Walking slowly down the alleyway he came to a large storm drain.

Though in this section of the city very little Numenorean stonework remained intact above ground, the entirety of central Umbar was build on an intricate network of tunnels that ensured water was properly returned to the sea without turning the streets into rivers whenever a strong storm blew through. In a torrential storm such as that which raged that night, rapids and waterfalls roared below the empty streets. Thorongil slid down the hole and found that at the base there was a roughly hewn walkway beside the roaring water. There were also tracks: boot tracks.

Thorongil silently tracked his quarry through the maze of tunnels below the city. Twenty minutes later he came upon the sounds of many people talking.

“Who has seen Durgnîr?” shouted a commanding voice.

“We lost him too!” shouted another man. “But he got his target.”

“That's the whole list,” said the voice. “Well done.”

Thorongil peered into a wide chamber. Here many tunnels brought water collected from the surrounding neighborhoods of Umbar. The water left by way of a single wide tunnel that flowed towards the sea. Hundreds of columns were spread evenly throughout the wide open room, and around the columns were small stone walkways. Small bridges, held up by archways under which the water could easily pass, connected the pillars in a grid of narrow pathways above the torrent of rushing water. Between many of the pathways the Dead Hand had construct wooden platforms, so in the center of the cistern there was a wide floor. In the center was a raised platform with an altar, though it looked to have fallen into disrepair.

Thorongil slipped into the cistern and carefully moved from shadow to shadow around the edge.

“Did we get the princess?” asked the man who was clearly their leader, standing by the altar. There was no answer.

As Thorongil moved along the narrow ledge that ringed the cistern he came to a small door. It led to a small room - once an place to keep supplies for repairing the cistern - and he slipped quietly inside. Countless scrolls sat rolled on racks against the walls. On a table sat a map. It was a map of the palace, marked in great detail with patrol routes and passages to be used! All around the building there were lines and arrows showing their plan of attack. In the bottom right corner was a seal.

Department of Internal Affairs

“Altazîr,” muttered Thorongil, like the low growl of a beast.

As if in answer came Altazîr’s voice from outside.

“Report!” he roared.

“Everyone you asked for is dead,” replied the leader of the Dead Hand. “We did not find the princess, but she was not part of the original bargain!”

“That is of no consequence,” answered Altazîr. He could deal with her later - perhaps she would prove more useful alive, though her presence complicated matters.

Thorongil rolled up the map and with it slipped back into the main chamber of the cistern. Altazîr was standing by one of the many tunnels that fed water into the chamber.

“Now it is time for our reward!” demanded to leader of the Dead Hand.

“Indeed it is,” answered Altazîr. He turned and walked some ways up the tunnel he had come by. Then he blew a horn, and it echoed deafeningly through the tunnels and off the hard stone walls. A moment later hundreds of armed men rushed into the cistern from the walkways beside every incoming tunnel.

“Traitor!” roared the the Dead Hand’s leaders. Battle was upon them, and they were outmatched. Altazîrs guardsmen were handpicked for this mission, and far better equipped than the cultists of Sauron. As the battle raged Thorongil stayed out of the fighting. A number of Altazîr’s soldiers went to the tiny record chamber Thorongil had recently vacated. They doused the contents in oil and set it alight. There was to be no record of anything that had happened that night, save blood and bodies flowing down to the sea.

As the battle became clearly futile, the last surviving cultists threw themselves in the rushing river below their feet. Thorongil, after uttering some strange words at the map to protect it from the water, leapt in as well. More than half of the members of the Dead Hand who tried to escape that way drowned or were killed as the current dashed their heads against stone pillars that held up the tunnels and cisterns they passed swiftly through. Those few that survived, with Thorongil in tow, were thrown from a large pipe into the seas. Only a few survivors made it to shore.

From here it is not hard to guess how Thorongil made it to the tavern where Amdirien would meet him. It took him a long while - the outpouring of the rainwater into the sea was far from the docks. He was surprised to see the Tar-Minyatur gone, and he hoped at first that Amdirien had gone with it, but he knew in his heart that it was not so. She would not have left Anders in Umbar. Thorongil rightly guessed that Amdirien might come looking for him in the tavern, so he waited patiently and sipped a glass of wine.


	7. My Kingdom for a Ring

Amdirien did not sit down at the table at once; she first joyously embraced the maia.

“I would say ‘thank the Valar you are alive,’ but well, you don't need their protection,” she whispered. “Where have you been? Is Anders safe?”

“Anders and your guard should be safe,” Thorongil answered. “It is good to see that you are unharmed.”

“You can thank Gwethien for that,” said Amdirien.

“What about me!” objected Mirumor.

Amdirien and Mirumor took seats by Thorongil at his little table in the corner. Gwethien, in human form and seductively dressed as always, walked into the tavern. A sailor got up to say hello and she slapped him so hard with the outside of her hand that her nails, which even in her human form were as sharp as claws, left three deep cuts in his cheek. No one else bothered her as she went to take the last seat at Thorongil's table, eagerly licking the blood from her nails.

“We have work to do,” began Thorongil. He laid the map he had taken from the Dead Hand out on the table. “We have been betrayed…”

“By Altazîr!” interrupted Amdirien proudly.

Thorongil smiled with genuine surprise - an expression Amdirien had never seen on his face.

The Princess grinned, beaming with pride. “You haven't been the only one making progress!”

“Apparently not!” smiled Thorongil. “How do you know?”

Amdirien told Thorongil all that had happened since the attack on the palace.

“I don't know what I would have done without Gwethien!” Amdirien concluded.

“Lost a lot more money to me,” chirped Mirumor.

“Make sure you tell that to Elerína!” Gwethien demanded.

“I will,” nodded the Princess.

“Where is Anders?” Amdirien asked Thorongil again.

“I told him and your guard to shelter with the local garrison of Rangers, if they were unable to find you. I suspect few among the Rangers are loyal to anyone in Umbar.”

“Then we should head to the Rangers’ camp,” said Mirumor.

“Correct,” nodded Thorongil. “And the sooner the better. Altazír will move quickly to solidify his control of the city.”

Thorongil, Amdirien, Gwethien, and Mirumor made their way carefully and quietly to the old fort where the Rangers made their camp in Umbar. The found it surrounded by heavily armored soldiers. They snuck into a nearby storm drain, much like the one Thorongil had pursued the Dead Hand assassins into the previous night, and snuck into the Ranger’s compound that way. As they clambered out were met with at least ten men with drawn bows, and a few of Amdirien’s guard with swords. Their sea-blue cloaks were torn and tattered, and soaking wet.

The morale of the men was boosted by the presence of Her Majesty, and those who had heard tales of Thorongil’s exploits - mostly his encounter with Shelob - were glad of his company as well. Gwethien and Mirumor were viewed with mild suspicion.

“Where is Anders?” asked Amdirien immediately.

“He and Gadron went to investigate the North and South towers,” replied the ranking officer.

The bay within which Umbar’s harbor sat was defended by two ancient fortresses, placed at the north and south banks of the entrance to the bay. They were commonly called The Towers, and at times The Lighthouses, because when they were built they were constructed in defiance of the will of Numenor’s king. To prevent any settlements in Middle Earth from rebelling and declaring independence, it was made illegal to build fortifications larger than a simple castle. The governors of Umbar defiantly built the twin fortresses, and when questioned they mockingly claimed them to be only lighthouses to guide passing ships into the harbor. Since the fall of Sauron they had been controlled and garrisoned by two very old and powerful families, whose influence in the city stretched back thousands of years - both with ties to the Dead Hand and various other criminal organizations.

“To which did Anders go?” asked the Princess, but no one knew. If Anders and Gadron had decided who would go where ere they left the garrison, they had not shared that information.

The Princess pulled Thorongil and Gwethien aside. “You must find Anders!”

“Anders is a capable soldier,” began Thorongil.

“He could be walking into a trap!” interrupted the Princess. “I know you only care about my safety…”

“Anders is my friend as well,” growled Thorongil. “But I promised your mother I'd keep you safe.”

Amdirien mustered up all the confidence she could to bluff: “I’d rather lose this whole damnable city than lose him. If you don't do something to help him, I will.”

Thorongil stared at her with such a glare that it hurt the Princess’s eyes, but she held her head high long enough for him to buy it.

“Fine!” he roared. “Gwethien, fly to the south tower and see if he is there. If he is, bring him back on Amdirien’s orders. I'll go to the north castle.”

He turned back to Amdirien. “I hope you're happy! Some evil will come of this, mark my words!”

“I'll be fine!” answered Amdirien.

Thorongil leapt back into the sewers and Gwethien soon followed. Amdirien was left alone with the remaining soldiers of the garrison - about twenty rangers and eight of her guard. She sat under an awning and cursed the pouring rain. Mirumor soon joined her, but they spoke little.

At sunrise the next morning a horn was sounded just beyond the walled courtyard where the rangers camped.

“Surrender now, and your lives will be spared!” shouted a voice.

“For Gondor!” roared the Rangers. In answer there came a booming sound which shook the courtyard, as a battering ram slammed into the gate. A hail of arrows fell amidst the defenders.

“That is our queue to leave, Your Majesty!” said Mirumor, grabbing the Princess's hand and pulling her towards the sewer drain.

Amdirien tried to object but the door to the courtyard shattered seconds later as the battering ram hit it a second time.

“Seven Stars, and Seven Stones!” shouted the ranking officer among those left loyal to the Princess.

“And One White Tree!” roared the rest of the men, charging at the broken gate, firing their arrows and drawing their swords.

Amdirien caught a glimpse of the attackers as she waited for Mirumor to scurry down the storm drain first. Some of them also wore the heraldry of Gondor. Doubtless they had been told the Rangers were the traitors. Others wore black and gold plate armor, and wore emblems of Numenor of old. Amdirien hesitated, wondering what she could do to stop such senseless slaughter.

“Amdirien?” shouted Mirumor. “Amdirien get down here!”

The Rangers and her own guard were hopelessly outnumbered. One of the attackers broke through their lines and caught sight of the Princess. Amdirien immediately began her descent down into the tunnels below the city.

“Did they see you?” asked the sorceress.

“Yes,” replied the Princess.

“What on earth were you waiting for?” cried Mirumor. “Come on!”

They rushed down the tunnel. They heard the sounds of fighting die down, but they also hear a voice cry “I saw one go into the tunnels!”

“Whatever shall we do now?” asked the Princess. “Oh, I have made a right mess of this; I only hope I live long enough to see how angry Thorongil is when he learns of it!”

“I can't speak to how you are getting out of this,” began the sorceress, before stopping mid sentence. “... I can get one of us out of here alive.”

“What? How!” exclaimed Amdirien. The two women ducked into a small alcove, hidden from the main sewer passageway.

“Well, I am a sorceress after all,” she smiled. “Watch this!”

Mirumor pulled a black and gold ring from her pocket and slipped it on to her finger. She immediately vanished into thin air. She re-appeared a second later, the ring off her finger

Amdirien was speechless. She knew the sorceress wasn't about to hand over their only hope for survival.

“Well, Your Majesty?” she teased, waving the ring in front of the Princess's face.

“What do you want?” asked Amdirien. They heard the sound of clinking armor from the direction of the drain they had entered by.

“I want Minas Morgul,” replied the sorceress.

“You want the tower!? You can’t possibly be serious!” cried Amdirien.

“I most certainly am,” smiled the rogue.

“My father…”

“Would chose the tower over his daughter's life?” gasped Mirumor mockingly. “I thought you were the heroes!”

Amdirien hesitated. She heard the loud ‘clank’ of steel boots at the base of the ladder down the hall.

“You are out of time, Your Majesty,” said Mirumor.

“I can give you better than the tower, give me the ring,” begged Amdirien.

Mirumor laughed. “Wrong answer!”

Amdirien grabbed the sorceress’s hand as she tried to put on the ring. “I can show you how to communicate with Sauron!”

“What?” gasped Mirumor. “Impossible!”

“If I am lying, you can have to tower!” replied the princess.

Now it was Mirumor’s turn to hesitate - a chance to commune with Sauron! She thought of the powers her mother possessed, and she had only encountered a Nazgûl. She remembered all her long days digging through the ruins of Barad-dûr, wishing she could have visited it in its prime. She remembered how useless she felt trying to use the Palantír, only to find it beyond her power.

Mirumor tossed the ring to Amdirien. “Deal! You had better be telling the truth.”

Amdirien slipped on the ring and immediately vanished. She waved her own hand in front of her face and saw nothing - a very disconcerting feeling, or it would have been, were it not for the sound of armored feet in the tunnels. Mirumor drew and cocked her tiny crossbow. She stepped out into the main passage and saw a soldier running towards her hardly twenty feet away. She took her first shot and her dart struck him in the eye. The man behind him tripped over his fallen comrade and tumbled into the rushing water beside the narrow path they stood on.

“She’s over here!” cried a third soldier. Mirumor ran for her life, occasionally turning around to shoot. Fortunately the young rogue had spent a great deal of her childhood playing in those sewers - and running from the authorities. She managed to stay one step ahead of the men who pursued her, and killed a good many of them. Amdirien stayed in the little alcove where she had put on the ring, too scared to move. Half a day later she heard footsteps.

A face the princess recognized peered into the alcove, smiling with her fangs bared. “Well well well, what have we here?” laughed Gwethien.

“Gwethien! Thank the Valar!” cried Amdirien.

“The Valar have nothing to do with it,” hissed the vampire. “Come with me.”


	8. Mortem Incarnatum

“Did you find Captain Anders?” asked Amdirien.

“I did,” replied Gwethien. “You can take off the ring.”

“Oh. Yes!” replied the invisible princess. “I had quite forgotten I had it on.”

Amdirien and Gwethien walked down many narrow passages and beside torrents of rushing water until they returned to the surface by a small stairway.

The vampire briefly explained the situation to the princess. “Your precious Captain Anders and his men are making their way to the northern fortress. Gadron and his men are already there - as, it is believed, is Altazîr.”

The Princess gave a bit of a smile.

“Looking for revenge?” asked the vampire.

“The safety of the city is my only concern,” replied Amdirien.

“You're a terrible liar,” laughed Gwethien.

“Well… maybe a little,” answered the Princess.

 

It took many hours to reach the castle. The sun was beginning to rise as they made their way along a well trodden dirt road leading towards and imposing fortress on the coast. It was still raining - a terrible thunderstorm, befitting the situation. Looking south across the bay of Umbar they saw an enormous black ship, trimmed with gold and sporting sails red as blood, sailing along the coast into the bay.

The castle was built on a large outcropping of rock with ocean on three sides. The road they followed wound its ways between jagged spires of stone, thrust from the ground like trees in a forest. As they came within view of the gate they heard a voice from behind a stone.

“Your Majesty!” cried Anders. “What are you doing here?”

Amdirien and Gwethien scurried behind the rock, where they found thirty rangers ready for battle.

“The rangers and my guard were overrun,” explained Amdirien. “I was pursued into the sewers, and made my way here.”

Gadron was understandably disturbed by the news. “Did any of my men survive?”

“I don’t know,” replied the Princess. “Where is Thorongil?”

“He went into the castle an hour ago,” replied Gadron. “He just ... climbed the wall - I've never seen anything like it! I told him the garrison was at least fifty strong, and usually closer to one hundred, but he insisted on going in immediately. If he wants to commit suicide…”

“What is your plan?” asked the Princess.

“We are hoping to catch someone leaving the castle here by the road,” replied Anders.

“If Thorongil went into the castle an hour ago, there is no one left to leave,” grinned Gwethien.

“Let's go see,” said Amdirien.

“Your Majesty…” objected Gadron, but it was to no avail. The Princess, with Gwethien at her side, strode confidently up to the castle gate. The Rangers gasped and followed after her, setting arrows to their bowstrings.

There wasn't a soul in sight, either on the outer wall or the battlements above. The Princess gave the gate a push and both halves gave way.

Captain Anders dared to grab Amdirien’s arm and pulled her back. “Perhaps I should go first, Your Majesty.”

“Very well,” she nodded.

Anders drew his bow, as did the other rangers.

“After you,” sighed Gadron.

Anders counted off. “Three… two… one!”

He rushed through the open gate, followed by the other rangers. Half turned right and half turned left, looking for targets. They found nothing but a few dead Gondorian soldiers.

“All clear!” shouted Anders, slowly returning his bow to an undrawn state. Princess Amdirien followed after her Rangers. Before them stood a tall keep; black stone set in place by the masons of Numenor long ago. No movement could be seen through the windows of the upper floors, and the iron gate before them was shut. Amdirien nodded towards it and Anders went to check if it was locked. It was, and despite their best efforts the Rangers could not force it open.

“Search around the keep,” ordered Amdirien, whose confidence commanding her soldiers was growing quickly. “Anders, take your men left; Gadron, go right.”

The rangers split up as ordered, and Amdirien and Gwethien were left standing in the courtyard. Gwethien felt the door to the keep.

“There is a spell on the door; a closing spell,” she said. “Thorongil’s work.”

“Why would he wish to keep people out?” asked the Princess.

Gwethien sniffed at the gap down the middle of the gate. She evidently liked what she smelled. “Not to keep people out, little one,” she smiled. “To keep them in.”

Amdirien at first did not understand. “Can you open it?” she inquired.

The vampire drew her slender rapier. The golden hilt held a long glistening blade coated in a dark liquid which dripped off the blade like blood. She thrust it through the crack in the door and with a boom like thunder the spell was broken. “After you, Your Majesty,” she mocked.

Amdirien thrust both doors inward and stepped through the threshold. Her nostrils were immediately assailed by the stench of blood and death. With a gasp she stumbled backward, back into Gwethien’s arms. Before her in the sixty-foot wide keep lay at least fifty dead men. Half wore the colors of gondor and the others wore elegant suits of dark steel plate armor - the sort of men Gondorians called ‘Black Numenoreans.’ They were men of Altazîr’s house, presumably. More than half the marble floor was coated in pools of crimson blood.

The door at the back end of the hall was open, and a window on that side of the room was shattered. Gwethien began walking towards the open door, beckoning Amdirien to follow. She stepped into a pool of blood and stooped down.

“Beautiful!” she exclaimed. She ran her pale hand through the blood and then stood up, eagerly licking the red liquid from her fingers. As she did so a little color came to her alabaster white visage. She shivered with both fear and admiration in her voice. “This, little princess, is why I protect you - why Sauron dares not harm your family. Even trapped in his mortal coil, The Predator lives!”

Amdirien stood still as a statue. She put her palm to her forehead, faint and nauseous. She saw that a few of the dead soldiers wore emblems on their gauntlets of Gondor’s other provinces - of Belfalas, Anfalas, and Pelargir.

“Some of these men were from the north,” she shuttered.

The vampire laughed. “They were in his way, Princess - that is all that mattered to him. Remember that next time you are sipping tea with Thorongil and his wife.”

“You're wrong about him,” said Amdirien.

“I've seen him at his… best,” replied Gwethien with a shudder. “Come on, we should keep going.”

Amdirien slowly made her way across the hall, trying her hardest not to step in the blood. She stepped out the door at the far end of the hall and saw that in the shattered glass under the broken window sat a black shield with two of Thorongil’s silver daggers embedded up to the hilt into it - the blades sticking out the inside of the shield, with one of them stained red.

“Grab those knives,” said Gwethien.

“Can’t you?” replied the princess, not used to being ordered around.

“Possibly not!” the vampire hissed like a snake.

“Vampires can’t touch silver?” inquired Amdirien through labored breaths as she struggled to dislodge the daggers from the shield.

“Don't be ridiculous!” laughed Gwethien. “It's not about what they’re made of, but rather who made them.”

After Amdirien retrieved the daggers the two women looked around outside. They found a stairway cut into the rocks, leading down to a series of sturdy wooden piers jutting south like fingers into the bay. A few small ships of war were docked there. Several bodies, mostly Black Numenorean soldiers, lay along the path and on the docks, their blood carried by the rain down into the sea. Half the Rangers - Gadron’s detachment to be precise - were making their way down to the piers.

A lone figure, clad in black armor trimmed with silver, stood at the end of the docks on the largest pier. He held a glowing red sword by his side, the light from which reflected off the wet wood of the piers. His cloak fluttered in the winds of the ocean storm.

“Thorongil!” exclaimed Amdirien, but he did not hear her through the storm. His mind was elsewhere. Gadron’s Rangers approached with arrows on their bowstrings.

Amdirien rushed down the stone steps, nearly slipping several times. “Thorongil!” she cried. “Rangers, stand down! Gadron, stand your men down!”

Gwethien did not follow the princess. She could feel Thorongil’s blazing anger, like the rush of hot air from an oven. The Predator did not often lose his prey.

As Amdirien caught up to her Rangers on the pier Thorongil’s black armor fizzled away, replaced by the armor Amdirien had given him. The once beautiful sea-blue cloak was soaked and tattered. He sheathed his sword and ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

“He got away!” he growled. “A minute faster and I would have had him!”

“Altazîr?” clarified the princess.

Thorongil nodded. “He escaped the keep by the window.”

Amdirien stepped close enough to Thorongil that her Rangers would not hear her speak softly. “Some of those men were Gondorian soldiers, Captain.”

“And if they had not fought so valiantly, Altazîr would now be in our hands,” replied Thorongil. “They died in an attempt to prevent a revolt - in a way. Tragic victims of war.”

Amdirien didn't nod, nor did she shake her head, or say anything in reply. She just stared out at the sea, as Thorongil had been doing. She wanted to go home to the cool winds of winter in the Citadel, and her stately duties in the capital. She wanted to sit with Elerína and study treaties and legal theories, and forget the blood and the rain. She had seen enough violence and death for her lifetime.

Thorongil went to speak to the Rangers, who had been joined by Anders and his men as well. He ordered them to search the castle for anything that might tell them of Altazîr's plans. Thorongil then rejoined the Princess at the end of the pier, where she stood softly crying - her tears washed away by the rain.

Thorongil stepped close behind her. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders.

“Sorry?” sobbed Amdirien. “What have you to be sorry about?”

“I brought you here…”

Amdirien laughed morosely through her tears. “You brought me? I dare say you forget which of us is royalty in these lands. I brought you to this god-forsaken city. It was my idea to come here, to drag you and Anders into this waking nightmare. My stupidity has already cost most of my guard and half the Rangers in the city their lives, not to mention Captain Pedron, and...”

Thorongil spun the Princess around and looked her square in the eyes. He had no dark jest or sarcastic parlance this time; he spoke kindly to her: “Let's get a few things straight, Your Majesty. First, you were only allowed to come here because I was going as well. Second, you can claim royal authority over this city all you want but I have thousands of times the experience you do at everything to do with rebellions and warfare - and Manwë himself sent me to protect all of Middle Earth - so anything that happens here is more my fault than yours. Third, no one has died on your account. We came to this city in the endgame - Altazîr’s plan was already in motion. People were going to die; at least some died for someone they believed in. All the blood that has been shed is on Altazîr’s hands.”

Amdirien nodded and embraced her immortal friend. “What will we do now?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Thorongil, patting her on the back. “I can leave the Rangers here with you while I kill Altazîr - or we can all take a ship back to Pelargir, if you feel the need to leave at once.”

“I'm not going to run,” replied Amdirien, finding her courage in the maia’s embrace. She still had the greatest soldier in history, plus thirty of Gondor's finest Rangers. “When Altazîr is dead, that will leave a dangerous void that only I can fill, now that he has eliminated most of the city's leadership.”

Amdirien and Thorongil returned to the keep and joined the Rangers searching the upper floors for details of Altazîr’s plot.


	9. Predator and Prey

If you wish to understand a bit more of what had happened at the castle where Thorongil fought Altazîr and his men and learn a bit more of Altazîr’s plans, you must return to shortly after Thorongil had scaled the castle wall and silently eliminated most of the garrison outside the keep. Altazîr, oblivious to his danger, was meeting with most of the highest ranking officers of the city guard who remained in Umbar. Also present were a twenty or so men loyal to Altazîr’s family in heavy armor. His plot to wrest hold of the city was nearly complete - all that remained on his part was a little theatricality.

A man from his own Department of Internal Affairs burst in through the front door of the keep. “Director! I have a report from our intelligence agents who infiltrated the Dead Hand!”

Altazîr opened the letter and read it loudly for all to hear. “At great loss the headquarters of the Dead Hand has been taken and destroyed. Though the cultists burnt most of their records before we could seize them, we found remnants of documents signed by the following names…”

Altazîr read out the list in full. It was a list of old, important families in the city - anyone left who might challenge him. No one noticed that his eyes were hardly ever on the page he read - he didn't need to read it, he had written it! While it was true that many of the families listed did have ties to the Dead Hand, his own name should have been front and center.

Armed with this new ‘evidence,’ Altazîr would have rounded up and executed hundreds, and forced those he spared to surrender their wealth and influence to the new emergency government - his government. It would be ruthlessly efficient; gone would be the pompous and gluttonous ministers who threw lavish balls while even princesses were mugged in the market square. As far as King Elessar would ever know, the great Altazîr of Umbar had prevented an insurrection and turned the most rebellious province of his kingdom into a prosperous haven of trade and commerce - at least for those of Numenorean stock.

“What concerns me, Director, is the Princess,” said one of the Gondorian officers present. “What news of her?”

“She has not been seen since attack on the ball,” said Altazîr. “She might yet turn up alive - but I do not think the odds favor it.”

“And what of the rumors that your men attacked the Ranger’s garrison?” asked another officer.

“There is no truth to that,” replied Altazîr, trying his best to hide his irritation at the question.

“Then why is that entire city block cordoned off by Internal Affairs?” interrupted a third officer. “What happened there? If Gadron is alive and well he would be here. I sent a rider to their camp and he was refused entry on your authority, Director. The Rangers technically report to me, and I have a right to know what happened to them!”

“I have no idea what happened to them, General,” replied Altazîr. “Their camp is empty, and there are signs of a struggle. Let me assure you that my best men are looking into it…”

“What gives you the authority to conduct the investigation?” objected the General.

“I am the highest ranking official remaining in Umbar,” replied Altazîr, “and I have ordered Internal Affairs to conduct that investigation! Are you accusing me of something, General?”

It did not go unnoticed that Altazîr clearly had the most swords in the room.

“Of course not, Director,” replied the General.

“Very good,” said Altazîr. “Then our chief concern should be…”

Altazîr was interrupted by a crack of thunder. The main gate into the keep swung upon; the bolts to lock it lay smoldering on the floor. Thorongil, in his black armor, stood in the doorway.

Before Thorongil could speak Altazîr cried: “To arms! The Dead Hand’s revenge is upon us!”

Two of Altazîr’s soldiers nearest to Thorongil drew their swords and charged. Soon all his men had done the same, and the Gondorian officers along with them. Altazîr followed at a short distance.

Thorongil drew his sword and easily dispatched his first two assailants. By the time he had killed ten of the soldiers Altazîr decided discretion was the better part of valor. He grabbed a small shield from one of his fallen men and retreated towards the back door of the keep, which was open.

“You’ll not get away that easily, traitor!” shouted Thorongil. He lifted his left hand towards the ceiling and slowly closed his fingers into a fist. Then he pulled his hand down, as if he were pulling some lever, or the handle on the end of a rope hanging from the rafters. As he did so every door out of the room slammed shut. Altazir struggled to open the back door to no avail.

By now Thorongil had killed more than half of his men, and a good number of the Gondorian officers as well. He drew one his silver knives and hurled it at Altazîr, who raised his shield just in time to prevent a killing blow. A second dagger soon followed, and this one pierced the shield and stuck an inch into his left arm beneath.

Altazîr turned away from the battle and threw himself shield first through a glass window. Thorongil's spell hadn't sealed those, and he landed amidst broken glass outside the keep.

“Make sail!” he screamed, struggling to his feet. “Cast off!”

He sprinted down to the pier below, slipping and tumbling down the steps which looked like a small waterfall in the storm. Fortunately his armor protected him from serious injury.

“Cast off!” he cried again. The men manning his flagship, a black and gold warship that could match the Tar-Minyatur in battle, immediately dropped the sails and raised the anchors.

He left a few soldiers to guard the pier and ran up the ramp onto the deck of his flagship. With his own sword he started cutting the mooring lines which tied the ship to the docks. Slowly the massive vessel began to leave the dock.

Altazîr looked up towards the castle. He saw Thorongil reach the top of the stairs - everyone inside the keep was dead. Thorongil cut his way through the guards Altazîr had left behind without breaking his stride. As he reached the pier he paused a moment, wondering if he could catch the warship by swimming. He knew he could not.

Thorongil stuck the tip of his sword into the wooden pier and held put his left hand. A metallic bow appeared in his hand, and a similarly made arrow sprang from his right. He took his first shot, and Altazîr ducked just in time. After killing a few of Altazîr’s soldiers on deck who had not realized their danger, Thorongil’s bow dematerialized as the black ship sailed out of range. He tore his sword free from the wood at his feet and stood silently, trying to feed the storm with his rage - to summon winds that could sink the warship in the bay. Unfortunately for Thorongil the ship was well made, and it weathered the maelstrom. Soon afterwards Amdirien and the Rangers found Thorongil on the pier

 

Altazîr met with his chief advisers, the conspirators behind the coup, in his cabin on his flagship.

“What in the world happened?” asked one.

“First, a drink!” said a pale looking Altazîr, taking a shot of whiskey.

“You look like you've seen a ghost!” said another.

“Not a ghost...“ replied Altazîr. “A demon.”

“Was that the same man who turned the tide against our assassins at the ball?” asked another, who had been Altazîr’s agent inside the Dead Hand.

“He's not a man,” replied Altazîr. “He cut through fifty soldiers like a knife through butter.”

“Where did he come from?” asked a conspirator.

“He came with the Princess,” answered Altazîr. “He was a member of her guard, I believe. I got a glimpse of his sorcery at the market when he rescued the Princess from a bandit, and then it was on full display when he slaughtered our assassins at the ball.”

“When did the Gondorian royal family get servants like that?” cried the former infiltrator of the Dead Hand.

“I suppose Sauron's monsters had to go somewhere,” theorized another conspirator. “Power attracts power…”

“It doesn't matter where it came from or how it got here, what matters is whether we can kill it!” said a conspirator.

“We have to!” replied Altazîr. “He doesn't seem like the diplomatic type.”

“Are you mad?” said another conspirator. “Look around you!” He pointed to the far side of the able from Altazîr, where several seats sat empty. “You're telling me a third of our number were killed in minutes in a hall full of our soldiers, by one ‘demon,’ and you want to go back… where it is waiting for us?”

“You’d rather flee like a dog with its tail between its legs?” cried Altazîr.

“Did anyone even wound him?” asked the infiltrator of the Dead Hand.

Altazîr took another shot of whisky and shook his head. “Nothing. Not a scratch.”

“Well then I'm not going back there!” replied the conspirator.

“Where would we go?” asked Altazîr.

“To Harad?” one replied. “To Bozisha-Dar, perhaps.”

“Harad?” hissed Altazîr in disgust. “To live among savages?”

“They know the value of gold,” replied another man. “It won’t be so bad.”

“Not me!” roared Altazîr. “You all may go where you wish, but I am going to the Golden Palace, to rule my city.”


	10. Endgame

From a balcony over the front gate to the palace, speaking to a crowded Ar-Pharazôn’s square, Altazîr was declaring his victory.

“...as of this moment, this city is under martial law. We will root out every criminal, every traitor, and send them all to the gallows. Too long the leaders of our once proud city have kept the peace by tolerating corruption and crime - no longer. There will be no pity, and no mercy. By the sword and the gallows we will bring peace and security to Umbar, the Jewel of the South!”

The crowd’s response was muted, to put it kindly. The Haradrim and other Southrons who lived in the city knew that Altazîr, like most of his kindred from the old families of the city, valued their lives little.

“I thought life under Gondorian rule would be different,” sighed an old man.

“Give it time,” said a woman beside him with a smile. It was Princess Amdirien, though he would probably never know it.

“Good luck, Thorongil,” she whispered to her maia companion.

Princess Amdirien made her way out of the marble paved square and rejoined her Rangers. They snuck into the palace by climbing into walled garden that Altazîr had sent her guard to just days earlier. Thorongil for his part waited until the appointed hour, then marched straight through the main gate of the palace. He wore the armor the Princess's had given him, but it was now so disheveled the he looked like a man who had passed through death itself. He revealed a small part of his power and wrath, so that terror went before him as his herald; all those who looked upon him fled or hid, and none dared hinder his coming.

Altazîr and thirty of his hand picked guards stood in the ballroom of the palace along with many Gondorian soldiers now under his command. From the east gate of the ballroom, still under repair after Thorongil shattered it a few night prior, Amdirien and her Rangers burst into the hall with bows drawn.

“Altazîr, your are guilty of murder, conspiracy, and treason against the crown!” cried Amdirien.

Altazîr, who had already sown seeds of suspicion against the Rangers in the city, answered her accusations in a loud voice for all the soldiers present to hear. “This is your plan, Gadron? A fake Princess? I expected more from a Ranger, traitor though you be! We found the Princess dead this morning, with an arrow in her back!”

Amdirien did not look particularly royal in the dress Mirumor had given her, and none of the soldiers in the ballroom had ever seen her face.

“Liar!” cried Anders, drawing his bow. “She lives, as you can see - despite your attack on our barracks!”

“Arrest them!” ordered Altazîr. The guards loyal to his family drew their weapons. The rest of the soldiers in the room stood idly, unsure who to trust.

Altazîr was not going to risk his own life in a fight with thirty rangers with bows ready. He turned to leave by the western door. He had hardly taken a step towards it when it swung inwards with such force it bent its hinges. Standing the the threshold was Thorongil.

“So… the demon returns,” said Altazîr. “Guards! Kill this monster!”

Altazîr’s men turned their attention away from the Rangers and cautiously approached the maia. Each man raised his shield and set his blade upon the top. Step by step they advanced in unison, a wall of black steel hedged with blades. Into their phalanx waded Thorongil, his sword in his right hand and flashes of fire in his left.

Altazîr turned to the rest of the soldiers in the ballroom. “I am the commander of this city; arrest these men!”

“Come, Gadron - you have to admit, this is damn peculiar,” began their commander. “You suddenly arrive with a woman claiming to be the Princess…”

“She is the Princess!” interrupted Gadron. “You've known me for three years, General! Have I ever lied to you?”

“Can you prove that?” asked the General, gesturing to the Princess. “I am going to have to insist that you stand down, Captain.”

“He controls the prisons and the courts,” replied Amdirien. “We will not surrender.”

The General drew his sword, and all fourty of his men did the same.

Amdirien looked across the hall and saw, not at all to her surprise, that Thorongil had already slain a dozen of the black clad knights. “Time is on our side,” she whispered.

Gadron drew his bow and pointed his arrow at the General. “We don't want to fight you, but we will. Rangers, kill any man that steps within ten yards of us.”

With hands quicker than sight every ranger drew his bow. The Rangers of Gondor were held in awe by the ordinary soldiers of Gondor, both for their skill and their loyalty. No one dared approach them, both out of fear and respect. Thorongil continued to cut his way through the Black Numenorean knights.

“Coward!” roared Altazîr. “I’ll have your commision for this!”

“Perhaps,” nodded the General. “But I'll not fight Rangers who have yet to draw blood.”

Altazîr looked back at Thorongil, who was more than half finished with his personal guard. He drew his sword and pulled a small shield from behind his cloak. “Then I'll do it myself!” he cried.

“You don't want this to end in more bloodshed,” sighed the General.

“If they won't surrender, then fight these traitors or you'll hang with them!”

Anders dropped his bow and drew his sword. “A politician against a Ranger?” he mocked. “Come, traitor - save us the trouble of an execution.”

The Gondorian soldiers seemed willing to let Altazîr fight Anders alone - given that the alternative was a battle with the Rangers - so the Ranger captain and the traitor paced in a slow circle. Altazîr was much better armored - he wore black steel plate like his knights. His sword and his armor were heirlooms of his family, forged in Numenor before its fall. His shield was nearly weightless, yet strong as a dragon’s scale.

Anders was the first to attack, and soon the duel was properly joined. The Ranger was more experienced, but only slightly so. Altazîr was stronger - the blood of Numenor flowed nearly pure in his veins. Anders wasted much of his strength on blows which stuck Altazîr’s shield while the traitor waited. Then like a serpent he struck, and Anders could barely fend off his attack. Altazîr struck the Ranger to the ground with the edge of his shield, leaving a gash above Anders’ right eye.

“I expected better from a soldier of your reputation,” Altazîr mocked, raising his sword for a killing blow. Anders, lying on his back, struggled to reach his sword. He looked to Thorongil, who was pushing the dead body of the last of Altazîr’s knights from his glowing red sword. He was nearly a hundred feet away. The Princess screamed in horror.

Even as Altazîr went to strike Anders, the Princess heard the twang of a bow and the whistle of an arrow. Gadron’s aim was true - and thus the men of his company who had died defending the Princess in their camp were avenged. Altazîr dropped his sword and clutched at his neck, where a bloody arrow now rested. He had been so focused on his victory that he had forgotten the rest of the Rangers. Anders scrambled to his feet.

“A Ranger never stands alone,” he said through labored breaths. Altazîr collapsed to ground in front of him.

“Now you've done it!” cried the General. “Gadron, you and your men are under arrest…”

“You don't want to do that,” said a menacing voice from behind the Gondorian soldiers.

“Wait… who are you?” asked the General. He turned to face Thorongil and saw him standing with his sword still dripping the blood of the knights he had slaughtered - their bodies lay many yards behind him, strewn about the western half of the hall. The pools of blood and Thorongil’s glowing sword gave credence to his claim that the Gondorian General did not wish to quarrel with the Thorongil and the Rangers.

“I'm Thorongil,” he answered. “I was sent to protect the Princess. From anyone.”

“Given the circumstances, command of the city falls to you until I can produce proof of my identity,” Amdirien decided, to defuse the situation.

“Very well,” said the General. “You best begin by explaining exactly what has happened.”

 

Amdirien and Thorongil told the General all that had happened since the ball, save for the details of the attack on the North Tower that morning, or anything of Gwethien’s involvement. It did not prove difficult to find people who could identify the Princess. Over the next few days the details of Altazîr’s treachery were exposed - even his involvement with the Dead Hand, thanks to testimony from Mirumor’s father. Unfortunately few of Altazîr’s co-conspirators were brought to justice. Most of them learned of Altazîr’s death too quickly, and disappeared south or east, along with with their wealth.


	11. The Night of Long Fangs

Two weeks after the climactic battle in the ballroom, Amdirien had finished rebuilding Umbar’s bureaucracy. She saw little of Thorongil, who was exhausted from his frequent use of his power. The Princess was tired herself, and eagerly awaited the conclusion of her task. Soon the day came when she felt that she had done all she could: the city was calm and stable. She sent Anders to find a Gondorian warship in the harbor to take them home.

In gratitude for their service, Amdirien invited all the Rangers who had fought for her to return to Minas Tirith with her to be honored for their bravery. She also offered them places in her personal guard, which had been sorely depleted. About half of the Rangers agreed to trade in their forest hues for the polished silver and sea blue cloaks of the Princess’s detail.

Amdirien was just settling into her cabin on the Adrahil, a tall white ship flying the blue flag of Dol Amroth, when she received an unexpected visitor.

“Your majesty, this woman claims to have business with you...” began a soldier.

“Hello Amdirien,” said Mirumor, pushing her way past the soldier.

“Mirumor,” sighed Amdirien. “Yes, guardsman, she may enter.”

Mirumor took a seat in Amdirien's cabin. “You seem to be doing well.”

“As well as can be expected,” replied the Princess. “And you?”

“I see my fortunes improving,” smiled the sorceress. “Three thousand silver, a Morgul blade, and an introduction to the Dark Lord himself - or the Tower of Minas Morgul, when you fail to deliver on the last.”

“I haven't forgotten,” nodded Amdirien.

“Of course you haven't,” said Mirumor. “I wouldn't dare suggest that King Aragorn's daughter would go back on her word.”

“The last of those will take time and tact,” cautioned Amdirien.

“I expect my payment in a reasonable time,” Mirumor replied.

Amdirien stood up, and it seemed to Mirumor that she looked taller and older than she had before. Her eyes were cold and stern. “You will get it whenever I see fit. And if it becomes an issue, I will send Gwethien to convince you to drop the matter, just as she ‘convinced’ your father to testify about the Dead Hand.”

 

On the weeklong voyage back to Pelargir, Amdirien’s mood turned dark and grim. Every moment on the sea brought her thoughts of the dead Captain Pedron - the first casualty she had seen in Umbar. Every night when she closed her eyes she saw his last moments: the flash of lightning and the glimmer of the treacherous first mate’s sword. She heard Pedron's muted cry, and saw his body fall into the turbulent sea. A shadow came over her, and she spoke to no one, and she thought only of revenge.

When her ship reached the docks at the mouth of the Anduin, Amdirien looked upon the fleet moored there under the pale light of a full moon obscured by the clouds, she saw the Tar-Minyatur - the pride of Gondor's fleet. Then her mind was made up, and she cared neither what her parents, nor Elerína, nor Thorongil would think. She found Gwethien and pulled her quietly aside.

“Are you hungry, Gwethien?” she asked.

The vampire hissed back at her like a cat. “Are you mocking me?”

“I promised you payment,” she whispered, “and now I have a task for you - suited more to your talents and desires than guarding a mortal princess. I want you to find the former first mate of the Tar-Minyatur, the one who murdered Captain Pedron, and I want you to kill him. I only ask that you learn first why he did it - what was the promised price - and then… throw what's left of him into the sea.”

“As you wish,” grinned the monster, and she vanished into the night. And come the next morning, the traitor had vanished without a trace.

 

A week later Amdirien was explaining everything that had happened in Umbar to her father in the small sitting room beside the throne of Minas Tirith. She told the tale in full, up until her departure from the southern city.

“That is a dark tale,” said Aragorn. “It is good that Thorongil was with you! But your debt to the sorceress, Mirumor, may prove a steep price. I am loath to reveal Sauron to anyone - especially to a potential servant. She should be watched closely.”

“I didn't have much of a choice,” sighed Mirumor.

“No, you did not,” answered Aragorn. “And if she becomes a threat, we can always deal with her later. Speaking of which, I must move quickly to capture the man who killed Captain Pedron.”

“That has been dealt with,” said Amdirien.

“How so?” asked the King.

“He's dead,” she replied.

Aragorn pressed her for more.

“He was killed, on my orders,” she admitted.

“I see…” said Aragorn. “By whom? Thorongil?”

Suddenly Thorongil stormed into the elegantly furnished room, nearly knocking the doors off their hinges. “Not by me!” he roared. “Tell him!”

“Speak to my daughter with more respect,” objected the King. Thorongil heeded him not.

“I sent Gwethien,” whispered Amdirien.

Aragorn leaned back in his chair. For a moment he looked pale and weak. “Gwethien…”

“You said yourself it needed to be done quickly,” said Amdirien.

“This has nothing to do with speed or efficiency,” interrupted Thorongil. “You sent her for revenge - you wanted him to suffer, and you wanted to be the one that caused it.”

“I made the best use of my available assets,” said Amdirien coldly. “He deserved whatever he got…”

“Did he?” growled Thorongil.

Amdirien began to speak but Thorongil wasn't interested in anything she had to say.

“Quiet!” he commanded, and his voice seemed to batter her down into the chair she sat in. “You have said enough, child, and now you will listen. You are playing with powers you do not understand. The authority is not given to you, Princess of Gondor, to use a vampire's power against your own people! Not because he did or did not deserve it, but because you cannot fathom what she does - what she is.”

“You use her for your own purposes, in our land,” replied the Princess.

“I take responsibility for her actions, and I understand her power, for I have it also. You do neither!”

“If you are here to judge me, than judge me!” cried Amdirien. “I used Gwethien to kill a murderous traitor - the sort of man you slaughtered in droves.”

“There will be consequences,” said Thorongil.

“You speak of authority,” said Aragorn, “and you have no authority to punish my daughter. And if you threaten her again, I will have to reconsider your presence in my kingdom.”

Thorongil turned to Aragorn, but it was clear that his words were meant for Amdirien. “Very well. She has two choices. Either she will have nothing more to do with me and my brethren, because she has proven herself untrustworthy with our power…”

Amdirien shook her head.

“...or she can accept our judgement, and learn first hand to what kind of horrifying fate she sentenced a man.”

Strength returned to the King's face. “If you lay a finger on my daughter…” he roared.

“I used their power, so I will accept their judgement,” interrupted Amdirien.

“You don't have to do this,” said her father.

“Yes, I do,” replied the Princess.

Thorongil nodded, and took a silver coin from his pocket. “Are you familiar with my ability to show people events from the past, using an object that was there?”

“I am,” nodded the Princess. She had heard how Thorongil had shown Timothy visions of his father, who the orphan had never known. She doubted this would be so kind an application of that powerful magic.

“This was in the traitor’s pocket when he was killed by the vampire,” said Thorongil solemnly. “Tonight you're going to sleep with it close to you, and you're going to experience the horror you unleashed - exactly as he did.”

Amdirien shivered. “Sounds fair. And then you will hold the matter resolved?”

“Yes. As will Elerína.”

“Very well,” shuddered Amdirien. Though she was afraid, she was also relieved that the maiar were offering her a way to atone for her mistake.

“Sweet dreams,” mocked Thorongil as he left; but his sarcasm hid pain - he hoped she would not be too shaken by the ordeal.

 

The next morning Amdirien awoke in a cold sweat from the nightmare to find both Elerína and Thorongil be her bedside. She remembered in vivid detail the attack - Gwethien, finally given permission to kill, had taken her time with her victim.

“Are you alright?” asked Thorongil.

Amdirien felt her neck, half expecting to find it covered in blood. It had all been a dream - an illusion of Thorongil's magic. “You're the sorcerers, you tell me!” she cried.

Elerína and Thorongil smiled at each other.

“I think she's fine,” said Elerína.

“Maybe… feeding someone to a vampire wasn't my best idea,” she conceded.

“Is that an apology?” asked Elerína.

“It's the closest you're going to get,” laughed Amdirien, struggling to sit up and instinctively examine her limbs to make sure none of the agonizing injuries she had just felt in her dream had followed her into the waking world.

“That's an Elerína-like apology if I ever heard one,” chuckled Thorongil.

“Please don't do something like that again,” said Elerína. “The power to kill like that - with Gwethien as your weapon - once is an unfortunate mistake, but if you made a habit of it…”

“...then you would become exactly what we are here to fight,” said Thorongil.

Amdirien nodded. “I understand.”


	12. Epilogue

“Are you ready to take this down?” asked Princess Amdirien.

“Yes m’lady,” nodded the Royal Scribe.

Amdirien began to dictate: “Let it be recorded, and let no man question, that Pedron, Captain of His Majesty's Ship Tar-Minyatur, veteran of the War of the Ring and hero of the Battle of Pelargir, did lay down his life in service to the crown at the age of…”

Suddenly Amdirien fell silent. Then after short deliberation she continued with some effort. “... at the age of one hundred. He fell in valiant defense of the Lady Amdirien, Daughter of Aragorn, Princess of Gondor and The North, from the forces loyal to the traitor Altazîr of Umbar. While his body was given to the sea which he loved, his memory shall endure in our hearts, and in these records until the last days.”

Amdirien walked over the scribe's desk and read his work. “Very good,” she nodded before signing the document. “I want this copied twice. One for Minas Tirith, one for the library at Dol Amroth, and the original for his wife.”

“Yes Your Majesty,” he nodded.

Amdirien took a seat on a cushioned couch and put her head in her hands. A minute later she was interrupted by Timothy who arrived unannounced. He knelt obediently before her.

“Your Majesty?” he said.

Amdirien was startled from a dark memory: the vampire attack she had ordered and her maiar friends had then forced her to experience. “Timothy!” she exclaimed. “What can I do for you?”

Timothy tilted his head in confusion. “You sent for me, Your Majesty.”

“No I didn't,” replied the Princess.

The scholar’s cheeks turned red and he stumbled for words. “Yes you did… I mean, of course not Ma'am… I mean, your guard came to fetch me, and…”

Amdirien stood up and smiled. “I believe this mystery has an obvious solution. Come, let us find Elerína.”

Timothy sprang to his feet and followed behind the Princess, who explained her theory.

“Her Grace has recently realized that if she gives the palace guards orders without any explanation they assume those order came from me,” she said. “She has them running all manner of errands these days. Usually they prove fruitful to everyone, so I have made no effort to stop her.”

Timothy nodded. That certainly sounded like something Elerína would be doing. Since the maia was not soon to be found, Timothy gathered up his courage to ask the Princess a question.

“How have you been, Your Majesty?” he squeeked.

Amdirien put her hand to her mouth to keep from laughing at the shy scholar. He evidently still saw himself as just one of the common folk, with no business wandering the palace halls with the Princess. No one in the palace dared treat him as such, at least not publicly; the last time a noble dared to ask why the “peasant boy” was permitted in the palace and allowed to hear their councils, it had driven Elerína to such wrathful fury that Amdirien had worried that she might lay some curse upon the unwitting fool, or turn him into a block of wood right on the spot!

“I am doing well, thank you,” she replied. “Have you heard the tale of my trip south to Umbar, from which I only recently returned?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” replied Timothy. “Or at least, the parts which Her Grace saw fit to share with me of her visions from afar, and that which Thorongil boasts of over dinner since his return.”

Amdirien shook her head. ‘He dines with Eönwë and Ilmarë,’ she thought, ‘but my family leaves him speechless.’

“Well, I am very glad to be back here in the White City,” said the Princess. “And what of you?”

“Nothing much, Your Majesty,” he replied. “With Astra and Eddil wounded, none of my friends are interested in any adventures at the moment. I might soon travel north to Esgaroth with Aldamir and Astra...”

“There she is!” exclaimed the Princess. They found Elerína kneeling in front of a small pool of water in the gardens behind the palace. Lights danced in the water, but they disappeared as the sorceress waved her hand over them just as Amdirien and Timothy rushed up to the side of the pool to see what she was doing.

“There you are, Timothy!” said Elerína, ignoring the Princess at first. “I want you to go to the library below us and read everything they have on Mirkwood and Rovannion. Everything about the land, the forest, the animals, the people… everything! I'll join you there later.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” answered the scholar. He ran off as fast as his legs would carry him.

“And what can I do for you, Amdirien?” asked Elerína.

“Nothing at the moment, Your Grace,” smiled the Princess, “though perhaps in the future you might tell my guards where to bring the people you summon…”

“Oh, did they bring him to you?” laughed the sorceress. “Well thank you for bringing him here.”

Amdirien shook her head. Elerína never apologized, no matter what happened. “Would like me to ask my father assign you your own servants?”

“Yours do just fine,” smirked Elerína. “Now, I should get on with my work.”

“Which is what, exactly? What did you see?”

Elerína gestured up towards the sky, where Amdirien caught sight of a great eagle amidst the clouds. “I have received ill tidings from the North. Something is wrong with the Greenwood, and it is shrouded from my sight. So I have had to turn to more… creative methods.”

Elerína waved her hand over the water and dim lights began to form into clearer images.

“The Mirror of Galadriel!” exclaimed the Princess, remembering stories her mother had told her.

Elerína couldn't help but groan at the mention of Galadriel, who apparently was now known for a spell which she had been using since long before the elves had even awoken. It would take more than a few ages of the world for the rivalry between the greatest of the maiar and the greatest elven maiden to subside.

The images they saw in the water all looked the same: the densely packed trees of Mirkwood.

“Nothing useful,” sighed the frustrated maia. “Some other power contends with me, even from afar. Perhaps it will show more to you…”

“Me?” gasped the Princess. “Alright. What must I do?”

“Just look,” replied the sorceress, waving her hand over the water again. Then she stepped away, leaving the Princess to kneel beside the pool and watch the ever changing images within. After a minute the lights faded and Amdirien stood up.

“What did you see?” asked Elerína eagerly.

“I saw mostly trees, like you,” she answered. “But occasionally I saw people. I saw an old man in brown robes, wielding a glowing staff against a swarm of crows. I saw a bard dressed in rich clothes travelling in the wilds with a young woman clad all in black. And strangest of all, I saw an eagle riding on top of a large brown bear, walking down a dusty road! What does it mean?”

“I wish I knew,” said Elerína. “But I see one inescapable conclusion: something in that forest is blocking my sight. Mine in particular. It knows I am here.”

“Well, that sounds terribly ominous!” laughed the Princess. High in the Tower of Guard she did not fear a rumored shadow far in the north. But Elerína did not laugh. She could count on one hand all those in Middle Earth that ought to be able to defy her sight, and she thought she had them all accounted for: dead or under her command. Without a word she walked back into the palace with Amdirien close behind her. The tale Amdirien glimpsed in the water is told elsewhere, and the Princess played small part in it.

It says something about how accustomed to her maiar allies the Princess had become that she went about her day thinking little of the magic she had just been a part of. The rest of her day was uneventful, and after a lovely dinner with Anders on the sixth level she was making her way through the dimly lit streets of the White City when she was suddenly startled by a tall figure cloaked in black.

“Hello, little Princess!” said Gwethien.

The poor Princess, who had been uncomfortable alone in the dark since the forced nightmare of Gwethien's attack, nearly jumped out her skin.

“Don’t scare people like that!” she cried.

Gwethien couldn't help but giggle. ‘If I wanted to scare you,’ she thought, ‘you'd know it.’

“How have you been feeling?” asked the Vampire.

“Fine, fine,” said Amdirien, her quickened heartbeat thumping in her ears.

“Good,” replied Gwethien. “Would you like me to walk you back to the palace?”

The Princess quickly shook her head. “Not really.”

The vampire nodded and turned away to return to her little room on the sixth level. Amdirien set off quickly towards the palace, but a moment later was interrupted again by the vampire who turned back towards the princess.

“Amdirien?” she called. Amdirien turned back in amazement. She didn't think the vampire had ever called her by her given name: it was always ‘little one’ or ‘princess’ in a mocking tone.

“Yes, Gwethien?” she replied.

“If I had known what Thorongil and Elerína were going to do to you,” Gwethien said, “I would have made it a lot quicker. I'm sorry.”

It took Amdirien a moment to process kindness and empathy from the vampire. “It's alright,” she finally replied, “you did exactly what I wanted. It was my fault.”

“Still…” began the vampire, before adding kindly: “Take care of yourself, little one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading Blood in the Water! I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. If you have the time, please don't hesitate to leave a comment saying what you liked, and what you think could have been better!
> 
> The sequel, currently titled The Bird and the Bear, is about 40% written. It follows Timothy's adventure into the dark depths of Mirkwood along with a number of new characters (teased in Elerína's mirror).


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